Films About Ghosts
by Raquel
Summary: A girl named Ariane wakes up a thousand years away from her family, her love, and the place she called home, but she wakes with a strange giftthe power to read thoughts by touch. An epic that focuses on Slytherin House. CHAPTER 26 POSTED.
1. The Tomb

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts"--the Counting Crows_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter One: The Tomb**  
  
_Air.  
_  
At first she wasn't sure what it was that tickled her senses: cool, moist. She poked out her tongue and tested the something that hovered before her face. Something was definitely odd here. This was not where she'd gone to sleep. It was too dark here—she was afraid of the dark! In a panic, she sat up, her ribs expanding as she did so. Her chest rose and rose for a year, and then muscles long unused expelled the breath forcefully.  
  
Air.  
  
That was the word—she was sure of it. As she gasped, her ribs pumping and her stomach pushing, she knew that air had once been very important. Was important now—most important. She looked around in curiosity; her breaths grew steadier, her eyes adjusting to the near darkness. The overwhelming feeling of something being wrong was foremost in her mind. A white sheet lay crumpled around her waist, still over her feet. She grinned foolishly. That must be it—she was naked. How stupid of her.  
  
Hitching the sheet up around her breasts, she knotted it. It took a few tries, because she was very stiff. Her fingers did not seem to want to cooperate. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed she was on, she dropped to the floor and fell over. Using the marble bed for support, she got to her feet once again. She was very woozy—all the blood was pounding in her head. Her brain seemed to be full of fog, wet and white and opaque.  
  
_Her name._ That was what she'd been trying to remember. Musingly she ran her hands over her face as if that would provide the clue. She brushed her eyelashes against the palm of her hand, enjoying the feel. It tickled. For a second she studied a long white scar just above her left breast, but she could not remember when it had happened—or even if it had hurt. She prodded the smooth white of the scar, feeling the slight bump of it beneath the larger bump of her collarbone.  
  
_Her hair._  
  
The thought came unbidden, popping through the fog. Immediately she put a hand to her head. The hair that met her fingers was not as short as she'd feared, but it seemed that way because it was bound back in a most uncomfortable and itchy style. Tucking her sheet under her elbow, she pulled and tugged clumsily at the mass of hair until it tumbled down over her shoulders and to her elbows in a mass of silver waves. Her brain presented her with the conviction that to have silver hair at her age was utterly absurd—but she wasn't sure how old she was. A peek under the sheet gave her no clues, but informed her that she was endowed with all the feminine charms of a young boy.  
  
Where was she? She glanced up and around. It was a very big room, made of white marble. Her bed—if that's what it was—was in the center of the square room. The ceiling looked like a field of stars—a black matte rock set with crystal chips. This must be her room.  
  
Then why did she have the definite feeling that she wasn't supposed to be here?  
  
She vaulted off the bed, her knees wobbling. "Maybe there are some clothes here."  
  
Looking around in shock, she realized that it was she who had said it. Well, her voice was a bit higher-pitched than she'd thought. Going over to one of the walls, she opened a trunk. Inside of it was what looked like a small child's playthings—a doll, a few round stones, and a long black feather? In the next trunk she opened, there were four paintings, each taller than she was. They seemed to be the life-size portraits of two men and two women. She pushed them aside—far too heavy to lift. The third trunk contained papers—thousands of them. In the very bottom there was a sketch of a tower, and the words 'So you shant forget us.'  
  
The fourth trunk was nearly empty. A letter lay in the very bottom, on top of another portrait, a bottle of some unknown substance, and a flute. She lifted out the letter, puzzled, and reached for the portrait. It was a portrait of a cat, a sleek ebony beauty with green eyes and a white spot on its chest. Confused, she picked up the flute, admiring the sleek beauty of it. She placed her fingers over the holes and blew, delighting in the pure clear note.  
  
She wasn't sure about some of these things. They all seemed familiar, in a distant kind of way, especially the flute and the picture of the tower. She held onto the flute as she moved to the very last trunk—which, to her relief, held clothing.  
  
After she had dressed in a gray skirt, white blouse, and black bodice, she noticed a neckband in the bottom of the fifth trunk. She picked it up, gasping softly at the beauty of the piece. Five thin leather cords, dyed different shades of green, were woven into a single complicated braid. The pendant at the middle was round and covered in a spiral of words (written in a language she didn't know) that began at the middle and swirled outwards, getting smaller and smaller until they were just dots. She looped it around her neck, feeling the pendant settle into the hollow in her throat. Touching it with reverent fingers, she was certain that this was hers.  
  
It was her birthday present.  
  
She flipped over the pendant, tilting her chin to her chest to see what was on the backside. There was something on the back, she knew it! It had to be! She squinted down her nose.  
  
_To Ariane on her tenth birthday from her loving brother_  
  
Ariane was confused. Ten? She hardly felt ten. Her bones hurt—her joints ached. She was stiff all over—much more like an older person. Ariane shuddered; the sort of tremble makes you say, "Someone just walked over my grave". She glanced at the white marble walls, suddenly terribly suspicious. Skidding across the marble slabs in the floor, she ran to the door. Her worst fears were confirmed when she discovered that it was sealed. Her white hands scrabbled at the mortar around the door for a frantic minute, and then she succumbed to her horror.  
  
She screamed.  
  
It echoed horribly, like a thousand shrill voices shrieking and ten thousand nails scratching at marble, and the horror of the noise only made her cry and scream more. With an effort Ariane stopped her noise and waited until the echoes faded, concentrating on the breath in her stony lungs and on the cold sweat trickling down her face. "I must plan," she whispered. "Think of some way to get out of here."  
  
A young man's voice echoed in her head from something long past. _"There will always be another way out for us," he said confidently, brushing his overlong dark hair out of his eyes. "I won't let you get backed into a corner."_ Ariane focused on the voice and tried to see the face it belonged to, but couldn't quite find it. The only thing left in her head when the voice had faded was the memory of a smell. A smile crept across her features as she remembered the smell of cinnamon and something else that her confused and foggy brain could not quite place.  
  
There would be another way out. Ariane was sure of it, sure that the boy she remembered would have left another door, even if he thought she were—dead. Another shiver dashed down her spine and she crossed to the opposite side of the room. It wasn't promising, just smooth white wall around the fourth trunk. With a sigh of irritation she bent over the trunk's contents once more, running her hands over the picture of the cat—which, no matter how hard she stared, did not seem familiar—and settled on the letter. It was rolled into a scroll and bound with a green leather cord like those that were looped around her neck. Clumsily Ariane unfolded the letter and began to read.  
  
"Don't fret, little sister, for I've not forgotten you."  
  
She stopped after the first sentence, her breath short. _Little sister._ Ariane's stiff fingers ran over the letter again, the letter that her brother had written, her link to the world outside her tomb. With another shaky breath, she focused on the precise, blocky handwriting.  
  
"If you're reading this, it means that what I did worked. I won't bore you with the explanations, but what I've done is I've caught you right before you passed into Death. Think of it like this: a human being has two parts: a body, which can be killed, and a spirit, which exists forever. My spell for you is like a net that caught your spirit before you went where I couldn't follow, and brought you back to your body. I healed it the best I could, so that you wouldn't return to a broken home, but if your joints are a little stiff rub some clove oil into them. It should numb the pain until they get used to moving again.  
  
"I'm also very sorry about the tomb: I couldn't tell the others what I'd done, because they frown upon tampering with Death. They insisted that you be buried with honors, so I built this for you. Consider it the largest present I've ever given you. They've mortared the front door shut, but there's another way out. I don't think anyone suspected what I'd done, but just in case I put an unlocking spell on it that only we can use.  
  
"Just face the main entrance and say 'Death forgot me' and a door will open behind you and to your right. Remember to use our special language, or it won't work. It's just another safety precaution to keep us safe from the others. The tunnel comes out about halfway up the old stone quarry, on the north side.  
  
"Remember that I love you, always have, and always will. Salazar."  
  
Ariane lost her balance and sat down hard on the ground, the musty folds of her skirt caught under her heels. "Salazar," she whispered, and the room whispered it back to her: "Salazar—Salazar..."  
  
_A hand with rough fingertips brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Look here," said the confident young voice that had told her there would be another way out, "This—this plant is called hellebore. It's very useful." A cinnamon smell wafted past as dark hair swung by her face; Salazar's hand plucked a plant from the ground. "It's used in Invisibility Spells."  
  
"It's poisonous," Ariane replied. The sun beating down on her neck was hot and her dress was scratching her and she had a cramp in her leg from crouching in the woods for too long. "And that's why no one ever drinks an invisibility potion, right?" She pushed her sweaty hair out of her eyes again. "Salazar, it's too hot. Can't we go home?"  
  
"Not until we find enough belladonna to fill your basket," Salazar replied, smiling at the nearly empty basket lying forgotten by Ariane's knees. "And that may take some time." He turned him smile on her. "Especially if you keep fidgeting like that." Ariane, halfway through pushing her hair away of her eyes again, scowled.  
  
"You do it just as much as I do!" she replied, grabbing her basket and letting her fair hair flop over her eyes as she stood up. "Probably even more."  
  
Salazar stood up, head and shoulders taller than she was, and for a moment she regretted taunting him. "You're standing in my hellebore," he said in a low voice, his eyes twinkling behind his dark hair. Ariane looked down and saw the leaves crushed beneath her shoes, looked up and saw Salazar's mouth twitch, and for a gleeful five minutes they had laughed themselves sick.  
_  
The letter fell from her fingers, landing with a soft 'whiff' on the marble floor. Ariane blinked twice, shivered, and flexed her hands, trying to restore feeling to them. Without thought she reached for the bottle and let the liquid inside drip onto her fingertips, then rubbed it into her sore wrists and knuckles. It smelled like cinnamon.  
  
Getting to her feet as clumsily as a newborn colt, she stumbled to her second trunk, which contained the four portraits, and pushed them all to the floor so that she could find the one she wanted. The top one was a man with thick, straw-colored hair and bright blue eyes; the second a woman who could have been his sister with red hair. The third was another woman with long brown hair and royalty-white skin, her heavy-lidded eyes turned away from the painter as though she were shy or uncomfortable or both. The fourth was Salazar.  
  
He was standing in a doorway, his arms crossed across his chest and his lanky legs braced against the door. The dark hair that constantly got in his eyes was pulled back with a leather thong (something Ariane was sure the painter must have done, because Salazar refused to tend to his own hair), but had still managed to escape enough to hang over one his dark eyes, which were painted so realistically that Ariane felt them looking into her soul. They were not black but the darkest of violets, as smooth and rich as the velvet she had once seen on the casket of a king.  
  
Someone had said that they had the same eyes.  
  
Ariane was struck by another distant memory: standing with her brother in a tiny room that stank of pigs. Her feet were bare and the dirt floor of the hut was wet, and the mud squelched between her toes. One of his arms was resting firmly around her shoulders, one of her silvery curls coiled around his fingers.  
  
_"I'll not go anywhere without her," he was telling the others in the room, but Ariane couldn't remember what they looked like. She remembered the mud and how red it was, and how it welled up between her toes as though she were standing on the edge of a lake of blood. "She's got no one left but me."  
  
"We cannot take children," said a man in a deep voice rich with wine. "We're going north, to build a great building of stone and teach those who are magical. She'll be in the way." Ariane clenched her toes and red mud ran over them, hiding them from view.  
  
"She's incredibly intelligent," Salazar said staunchly. "She's nearly nine years old—that's only a few years from the age of reason. Ariane is my sister, and I'll go with her or not at all."  
  
There was a sigh from the man, and a woman chimed in. "Salazar, it's not for your sake that we're talking right now. We don't want a small child getting hurt while the rest of us are building a building to rival Rome." The woman's voice was lyrical and fluid, and it appealed to Ariane even if her words did not.  
  
"I'm not going to get hurt," Ariane spoke up, and Salazar's hand tightened on her shoulder. "I'm going to help." Her eyes focused on Salazar, and he shook his head in despair.  
  
"I told you not to say anything," he told her, his dark eyes very serious.  
  
The woman with the lyrical voice laughed. "You have the same eyes," she said, "but they're especially striking in such a fair little girl." She shook her loose hair back from her shoulders, the movements only just visible to Ariane's downcast gaze. "I'd let her stay, but there's still the question of her safety."  
  
Salazar straightened, his bony teenage frame crackling with an effort to look mature. "I will keep her safe. As long as I'm here, nothing will harm her."  
_  
"What a dumb thing to promise," Ariane said aloud, her voice echoing and breaking the spell cast upon her by the portrait. "What a stupid, stupid thing to say."  
  
She was angry and not sure why, kicking the portrait aside and stalking back towards the other end of the chamber to retrieve the letter from Salazar. With a snap she unfurled it, her skin tingling from the clove oil, and scanned down to the line she wanted. "...face the main entrance and say 'Death forgot me' and a door will open behind you and to your right. Remember to use our special language, or it won't work. It's just another safety precaution to keep us safe from the others...." Ariane paused in her recitation. Special language? She read it again, hoping her mercurial memory would throw something at her, but no inspiration came.  
  
Silver hair swirling, she turned to the mortared door and drew in a deep breath. "Death forgot me," she whispered, the letter clenched tight in her fists. Nothing happened. With a frustrated cry she kicked the marble block that she'd slept on until recently. "Salazar!" Ariane yelled, her echoes rebounding. "I've forgotten everything and your words don't do me a damn bit of good!"  
  
With a sound caught between a snarl and a sob, Ariane sat down against the marble block and cried again, the tears running down her face until she'd given herself a runny nose and a headache. She blew her nose on the hem of her skirt and massaged her temples, praying that this wasn't the start of a headache like the ones that had plagued Salazar...  
  
She held her breath for a moment, expecting to be swept away by another burst of memory, but nothing happened. It was simply solid fact in her mind that Salazar had gotten the worst aches in his head, so terrible that they left him hiding from light, noise, and movement until they passed. Ariane's mind presented her with a vision of tightly closed eyes, dark eyelashes clumped together by tears of pain, a white hand gesturing for her to take away his uneaten meal. The candle in her hand was shielded to the point of being completely covered, but the light was still too much for him. It frightened her terribly to see her brother in this weakened state.  
  
Gradually the pain in her head faded, and she lay against the stone, her stomach growling. Ariane tried to ignore the pains in her belly that had replaced the pains in her head, instead tracing the engraving at the foot of her 'bed'. It was a crest—it must be her brother's crest, since Ariane could not remember having one of her own—made up of a coiled serpent in the high right field, an herbalist's symbol in the lower left, and a tiny repeated pattern in the upper left and lower right that she didn't know the meaning of. The serpent didn't look as though it were about to strike as it did on other shields, but was slyly peeking at her from under its thick coils.  
  
_Salazar stared eye to eye with a grass snake as it wove through clumps of wheat towards him as he lay belly-down in the dirt. "Shh!" he said without taking his eyes off the snake. "Don't move, Ariane."  
  
"What are you doing?" she whispered, not moving. The snake peered at her with curious eyes, alive with an earthy intelligence.  
  
He made some hissing noises that she knew were utter rubbish, but somehow they made sense to her:_ "I'm talking to it." _His black hair swung over his eyes, and he flicked it aside with a toss of his head, meeting her eyes for the first time. "You can understand me, right?"  
  
"Yes..." she scratched the back of her leg with the toes of her other foot. "But I can't speak like you do."  
  
"If you can understand me, you can," Salazar replied in English. "Just look at the snake—into his eyes—and talk to him."  
  
Obediently she knelt down by the grass snake and peered into its strange, bright eyes._ "Hello there."_ Her mouth folded around the hisses like they were candy, and she giggled in delight. The snake gave her an incredulous look.  
_  
Ariane's head jerked as her body fought to stay awake, banging the back of her skull against the marble. Though her silver curls cushioned it, it still stung.  
  
"Remember to use our special language, or it won't work." She silently mouthed Salazar's words, then stood up and faced the main entrance. Squinting her dark violet eyes, she imagined the grass snake's cool intelligence among the wheat. "Death forgot me," she whispered in the weird, hissing language that she and her brother had shared. With a rasp of stone on stone, something behind her shifted. Ariane turned in a swirl of gray skirts and hair and laughed in delight as she saw the newly revealed passageway in the back corner of the room.  
  
She scrambled inside and began to run, avoiding rocky protrusions with the ease of adrenaline. After awhile she had to slow down, not because she had become tired, but because water trickled over the rocks in a thin stream that was cool and sweet and made it far too dangerous to run in the dark. It was not so welcoming after it had soaked her skirt to the knees, and even less sweet when she was forced to crawl in it because the roof had dropped. Panting and sweating, Ariane crawled all the way to the bottom of the tunnel where it leveled out.  
  
With a gasp she sat down in the brook, having discovered its source. She was looking at a huge underground lake, which reflected watery blue-green light up at her and made swirling shadows on the craggy roof. Ariane peered into the clear water, which became ominously dark in the distance and hinted at a source. An underground river, perhaps? Or maybe the lake was the source for the underground river. Ariane squinted at the distant flowing water and wondered what Salazar could have been thinking, sending her out this way. How stupid.  
  
She ripped the hem of her skirt off and began braiding her hair with her clumsy, sore fingers (why had she left the bottle of clove oil in the tomb?), thinking all the while about what she was to do. Ariane was confident that she could swim, but saw no point in making the effort if she was only going to be lost in a watery underground labyrinth. To make sure that she hadn't missed a side passage, she crawled back up the stone passageway and ran her hands over the wall in the dark. There was no other way out.  
  
Moving as though in a dream, Ariane kilted up her skirt so that it wouldn't tangle around her legs, checked to make sure the letter was rolled up safely inside the flute she had tucked into the top of her braid where it would stay mostly dry, and waded into the freezing underground lake. At first she thrashed around like a fat sheep, but eventually her body remembered the rhythm of strokes and her legs remembered how to kick like a frog, and she made her way to the other side of the lake.  
  
Weariness stole up on her like a weighted cloak. She was nearly three- quarters of the way across the lake when her head went under for the first time, pulled by her sodden blouse and skirts. Treading water and sputtering frantically, Ariane ripped the sleeves from the blouse and shucked her bodice, letting them float down like strange jellyfish. Slightly lighter, she made better time to the edge of the lake, where she felt a cold force pull at her toes for the first time. It frightened her, and only the weighted feeling of her limbs could convince her to go on. Gasping for breath and trying desperately to stay above the surface, Ariane kicked herself forward one more time.  
  
In an instant, all that was left of Ariane in the chamber of the lake was her short, surprised cry, ripped from her by the force of the current of the underground river.

_Author's Note: Yes, I know I have about five stories in the works, but I love this one. I really, really do. It's going to be good, I promise. Now review so that I don't feel stupid posting my additional chapters._


	2. The Hospital Wing

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter Two: Hospital Wing  
**  
She was speeding down an airless tunnel, knocked this way and that, rocks bruising and cutting her white skin, and all the while water rushed into her lungs. Ariane saw the bubbles vanish behind her head, round and silver like coins in the weird blue light that was growing steadily darker, and just before she lost consciousness she was released and shot into a dark, bitter stillness that pressed the last air from her lungs.  
  
Then, just when she thought that at last she would die, she was being pounded on the back and what felt like the whole underground lake forced itself out of her mouth and nose. Hacking and sputtering on a dead leaf, she shook her hair out of her eyes and looked up at her tormentors, a solemn woman with a strange white cap on her head and a man who was easily ten feet tall.  
  
"I died after all, then?" she said faintly, and then went back to sleep, her skin itching and burning with new feeling and raw scrapes.  
  
Her dreams were many, as though her sleeping brain had gone on a cleaning binge to rid itself of the white fog that still lurked where memories had once been.  
  
_She walked alone beside a huge hole in the ground—big enough to put a castle in. Big enough to put Hogwarts in. Ariane smiled as she always did when she though of the name, such a silly name for such an important place, but she liked it. Better a silly home than a grim fortress. It wasn't very big yet—there were the four houses, each designed by its owner: Godric's squat round hut, Rowena's slender tower, Helga's businesslike square, and Salazar's brilliant cavern that was carved right into the bedrock—and a wall to enclose them all. The wall was tall, but not imposing, being about three times Ariane's height.  
  
She glanced down into the hole and thought that it looked like the footprint of a god. The sides of the hole were sandstone, smooth and straight where Rowena had lifted blocks of it out with Godric's help: Rowena was there for finesse and Godric for brute strength.  
  
Thinking of the older man and woman brought her thoughts to the basket she held loosely, full of herbs for Salazar and some wild vegetables for Helga. Ariane also had some long black feathers that she hoped might serve as quills for Rowena. The brown-haired scholar went through many quills every week, sometimes more than one a day.  
  
Ariane's sunburned face broke into a grin at the thought of Rowena, whose aristocratic pale skin was the result of too much time indoors and whose hands were always flecked with ink, chasing the geese around the yard in pursuit of a new pen.  
  
"Oy! Get away from that edge, now!" A tall man with broad shoulders and thick blonde hair came running out of the southern roundhouse. Ariane didn't need to see the sword glinting at his side to know that it was Godric. She wasn't fond of him, though she couldn't pin it on a reason. He was just so boisterous and bold and careless that it made her sensibilities ache. Salazar was his best friend, however, so maybe she was just being overly sensitive.  
  
"I said get away from the edge!" Obediently Ariane stepped away from the quarry, both hands clutching the handle of her basket. Godric slowed to a trot and wiped his forehead with a slab of a hand, then smiled with all his teeth. "By all the Gods, Ariane, don't do things like that! You know that Salazar would go mad if anything were to happen to you."  
  
"I do know," she replied quietly. "Is he home right now?"  
  
Godric scratched his chin, which was bristly and unshaven. "I'm not entirely sure—last I knew he was inside making some adjustments to his house." Ariane broke into a trot, as much to see her brother as to rid herself of the man she did not entirely trust.  
_  
Abruptly she was elsewhere—another gap in her thoughts! Signified only by vague colors and shapes, time flickered past, leaving Ariane bewildered and upset. "Calm down, dear, you're safe now." A hand steadied her head and poured something warm down her throat. Ariane sputtered and swallowed, and then relaxed onto the pillow, her mind once more entertaining her with clear dreams.  
  
_She was wearing clothes similar to what she'd found in the trunk in her tomb: gray skirts, black bodice, and a white kirtle with long sleeves. Winter was coming, lending the air an extra nip and the ground added firmness beneath her knees as she helped Salazar transfer his beloved plants to pots filched from the kitchens. Ariane hoped fervently that they would be finished with the transfer before Helga realized that her best iron stewpot was now holding fourteen different herbs and what seemed like a horse's weight of earth. The dirt, black and moist thanks to Salazar's spells and tender care, stuck to her bare hands as she tried to heap it into the smaller pot that she'd placed the mint into. Her cold-clumsy fingers had crushed a few of the leaves, giving the air a scent of mint.  
  
"What day is it, Ariane?" Salazar asked suddenly, his face hidden by his long hair.  
  
"Tuesday," she replied, tucking more dirt into the saucepan. "Sometime in the tenth month, probably." With a sigh she sat back on her heels and eased the knot in her back.  
  
"The sixteenth," he replied, rocking back on his heels as well. "You'll be thirteen in a few days." Salazar brushed his black bangs off his forehead, his gesture half-concealing the troubled look in his eyes.  
  
"I know that," she replied, tucking a loose strand of silver hair into the kerchief she wore over her ears. "And why did you ask me the date if you already knew?"  
  
"I just wondered if you knew," he muttered into a large clump of sweet pea as he worked a trowel around its base, separating a shoot to save. "Curious." With infinite care he lifted the sprig of the plant and transferred it into a water jug half-full of earth.  
  
She bent back over her section of the garden, breaking apart clumps of earth so that they could put it in the other jugs. Suddenly Ariane knew why Salazar looked so worried, why his dark eyes were troubled. "Thirteen is marrying age," she said triumphantly; glad to have found the source of his troubles. "That's why you're so worried."  
  
"Does that please you?" he asked flatly, still not meeting her eyes. "Are you glad to be so old?"  
  
Ariane looked at him, her brow wrinkling in concern. "What's wrong with you? Do you think I'd be happy to leave you?"  
  
"Would you?" His eyes glared balefully up at her from beneath his level, dark brows.  
  
She stood up so quickly that she tipped over the jar of mint, scattering soil and a fresh scent everywhere. "Don't think it. I'll never leave you, Salazar."  
_  
Ariane groaned as her mind shifted once more, and she heard a _hiss-shuck_ and felt a sharp pain in her shoulder. A distant voice cried out "Ariane!" in an agonized voice and she felt herself crumpling, blood spurting around the arrow shaft that had pierced her chest. Someone knelt over her, face indistinct, and hands held her head and said "Bite down on this" and with a wrench the arrow was gone and she was bleeding all over her blue dress and into the earth and she felt the life draining until her whole world was black, black, black and there was no one near her, not even Salazar. Ariane screamed aloud and sat up, eyes wide open.  
  
Someone dropped something and swore as it clanked metallically on the floor.  
  
It was morning, and she was in a sunny room that bore no resemblance to the shadowed, stifling rooms she'd visited in her dream-memories. She was wearing a white gown that was open in the back, and her hair was once more pulled back in a restrictive, itchy style. A boy was gazing at her in surprise from across the room, an oddly shaped metal thing at his feet. He was tall and fair, with an aristocratic sneer on his face and groomed pale hair that glistened in the light from the window.  
  
"Shit," he said in an extraordinarily cultured voice. "Don't do that."  
  
Ariane stared blankly at him. She hadn't a clue what he was saying. It was English—or at least it vaguely resembled it—but it wasn't spoken in any accent she'd ever heard, and half the words she didn't recognize. Realizing that he was waiting for some sort of reaction, she replied "Do what?" while her fingers sought a way to free her hair from its braid.  
  
"Do—"he paused, lost for words, scooped the metal thing off the ground and plopped it into the water in the basin where he was washing the—pots? "Scream like that."  
  
She didn't have a reply to this, and he didn't seem to want one, since he went back to scrubbing the pans in the sink with evident distaste. The room she was in contained several other beds and was very clean. The floors were paved with stone and were as free of dirt as the snowy-white blankets that Ariane had shaken loose during her nightmare.  
  
"Where am I?" she asked politely, tugging at the ends of her hair and finally loosening it, allowing it to shake down over her shoulders and over her purple eyes, giving her a shield between her and this strange boy. "Is this your master's castle?"  
  
His shoulders stiffened. Apparently she had offended him in some way, because he turned and spat, "I'm nobody's servant, and this isn't my home," and then turned his back on her, as twitchy as a riled cat. She shrugged and ruffled her fingers through her hair, peeking under the gown as she did so to check on her scrapes. To her surprise, her skin was unmarked, except for the white scar on the left side of her chest. That was distinctly odd.  
  
"So the mystery girl awakens!" Ariane looked up in surprise to see a man with very long silver hair and beard advancing on her. "Draco, leave the bedpans, you are excused. I'll tell Professor McGonagall that you completed your detention." His bright blue eyes did not leave Ariane's face. She was confused, half-naked, and in a strange place. The old man wouldn't stop looking at her, and he kept using words she didn't know—detention, bedpans. Ariane was only faintly aware of Draco stalking across the room and closing the door forcefully behind him, so pinned was she by the glare of blue eyes.  
  
"There's no need to look so frightened," he said, seating himself at the foot of her bed on a chair that looked too delicate to hold weight. "I'm not going to hurt you. My name's Albus Dumbledore."  
  
"It's a pleasure," Ariane said faintly, still holding the blankets like a shield between her and Dumbledore. "Where am I?"  
  
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Dumbledore replied. "Hospital wing." She stared at him blankly. "Are you a Muggle, dear girl?"  
  
"No," she said, feeling a little offended. "I'm a witch. But you must be mistaken—Hogwarts isn't anywhere near finished, at least not the last time I saw it." The girl shook her head to dispel the creepy feeling that had settled over her, sending silver curls flopping onto her shoulders. "They haven't even finished the outer wall."  
  
Dumbledore put his fingers together to form a church steeple, his eyes very grave. He wore small pieces of glass over his eyes that rested on shiny bits of metal. "I think," he said seriously, "that you'd best tell me when it was you last saw Hogwarts."  
  
Hiss-shuck! Her shoulder jerked involuntarily. "Not long ago—I was hit by an arrow and then I don't remember anything for a long time—and then I woke up in my room—but it wasn't really—and then I crawled and swam and—" Ariane waved her hands, trying to connect her words, then failed and said, "I don't know, exactly."  
  
"What's your name?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair as though she were about to tell him a great secret. "First and last, if you don't mind."  
  
"Ariane. I've not got a surname," she told him reluctantly. Only bastards did not have surnames, only children that wandered the streets and slept in pig-barns had no memory of their parents. "The villagers used to call me and my brother 'Morgana's Children' or 'Caer Arianrod'," she volunteered when he looked mystified. "That's where my name comes from, actually. Arianrod."  
  
"Your brother?" Dumbledore breathed, the heat of his hands fogging the glass in front of his eyes as he cleaned them. "What was your brother's name?"  
  
"Salazar," Ariane said after a short pause. She didn't think this man would harm him, but she knew that Salazar despised and mistrusted strangers. When Dumbledore's face didn't change, however, she was almost offended. Her brother was one of the greatest wizards in all Britannia! How dare this old man not know his name! "If we're in Hogwarts now he should be here," she wheedled. "After all, he's head of his House."  
  
That set off a veritable explosion of movement in Dumbledore's still face. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean that he's leader. He picks his own students, keeps up with lessons and makes sure no one makes too much trouble—isn't he here now? If this is Hogwarts, then where is my brother?"  
  
"The man you seem to think is your brother has been dead for over a thousand years," Dumbledore said abruptly, standing and pacing to the other end of the room. "You must either be addled or a very clever liar."  
  
Stung, Ariane clambered out of the bed. "I am not addled and I'm not lying!" she said heatedly, advancing on the older man, only too aware of the flimsiness of the gown she wore. "I don't know what happened. I woke up in an underground chamber—a tomb!—and spent a good few hours trying to remember where I was and who I was and know that I know who I am, you are not going to make me doubt myself."  
  
Dumbledore's eyebrows raised. "A tomb? Where?"  
  
Ariane gulped. "Underground. I went out a back way—it was supposed to lead to a quarry, but somehow I got lost and ended up in an underground lake, and when I tried to swim out the current got me." She gripped his sleeve in an attempt to make him look at her, to make him believe that she wasn't crazy. "You've got to believe me."  
  
"Your story is indecently hard to understand," Dumbledore said coolly, "and you still haven't explained how your brother was alive a thousand years ago and yet you are here now." His eyes moved downward to the hand gripping his cloak, and his eyebrows lifted even higher.  
  
"What?" Ariane snapped, releasing his cloak.  
  
"You have some interesting calluses on your hands."  
  
"Oh. I play," she said, waving her hand vaguely. Weariness was making her stupid. "I mean that I play the flute. Salazar made it for me." The thought of the flute reminded her of the letter—the letter! That was proof that she wasn't mad, wasn't some peasant Muggle who called herself sister and witch. "I had some things with me when I left the tomb," she said confidently, "A flute and a letter—have you found them?"  
  
"No," said Dumbledore, "When you were found you had only the clothes you were wearing."  
  
Ariane's heart sank, realizing that her story still sounded as ludicrous as ever. Her legs became inexplicably weak, and she sat down on the bed again, her head throbbing. "Are you all right?" Dumbledore asked in concern, one of his aged hands going to her shoulder.  
  
"I'm tired," she said, waving her hand carelessly, then hiding it in her lap self-consciously. It was a half-truth. Though she was tired, her mind was starting to teem with images again, like pictures she wanted to see. They wouldn't come into focus until she was sleeping, Ariane was sure of it. In fact, she rather hoped that she would remember who had killed her, for whether it had been an accident or a murder she was very much irritated with them.  
  
_"Are you awake?"  
  
Ariane looked up and saw Salazar's face, thrown into harsh angles by the light of a fire's embers, his eyes reflecting gold at her. "Yes," she whispered back, tugging her blanket more tightly around her against the night's chill. In fact she was probably more comfortable than her four companions, being the only one small enough to curl up on the horse's blanket that gave her protection from the rocky ground. Ariane tucked her feet under her blanket, aware that she was beginning to grow too large for it. "Salazar, I'm scared."  
  
Salazar shifted on the rocky ground, pushed his hair back from his eyes, looked at the three sleeping forms around the fire, and then replied. "I'm a little nervous about it as well," he confided.  
  
"It's been getting colder these past few weeks," Ariane said, rubbing her feet against each other for the warmth. "But the people have been nicer."  
  
"They don't burn witches up here in the north," Salazar replied, and his golden eyes hardened.  
  
Ariane knew that their mother had died at the hands of religious zealots who had frowned on her herb garden, two children and no husband, and also her pet owl, but it had happened when Ariane was very small and she couldn't remember their mother at all. Salazar didn't like to talk about her, but once, offhandedly, he had mentioned that Ariane was as pretty as their mother had been. She held on to this description, feeling most flattered but also very lonely when she thought of the woman whose face she bore but whom she would never know.  
  
"Do you remember her at all?" Salazar rested his head on his arm, letting his hair flop back over his forehead. It blocked the firelight and the glow in his eyes.  
  
She shook her head a little remorsefully, hoping that he wanted to talk about her. "I wish I remembered her as well as you do," she said softly, praying her flattery would loosen his tongue.  
  
"She was very pretty—dark hair and dark eyes—and very smart. She used to give me magic lessons when I was your age." Salazar smiled a little, the harsh planes of his face softening in the firelight.  
  
"Say her name for me," Ariane requested, propping her head up on her hand.  
  
"Arsinoë," Salazar said, relishing the syllables as they rolled off his tongue. "She never told me her surname, always said that it wasn't important."  
  
A silence fell, punctuated by the crackle of the fire as it settled lower. Ariane twisted a strand of her loose silver hair around her fingers, waiting for Salazar to speak again. She knew that he didn't like to think of their mother as the woman who had left them in the world with no name to call their own. Ariane didn't like to think of Arsinoë that way.  
  
"You look so much like her," Salazar said softly. "Except for your hair." He reached out and wound one of her curls around his index finger, the golden firelight turning it the color of molten bronze.  
  
"Did our father have silver hair?" Ariane asked recklessly, forgetting that one of Salazar's taboo subjects was their father. She froze guiltily as Salazar drew back his hand so fast that he snagged her hair and she gasped in pain as he accidentally ripped out a few strands. Without speaking a word—he didn't need to, because the reproach in his eyes was more than enough to sting—he turned over and buried his head beneath his blanket. "Salazar, I'm sorry," she whispered, horror-struck. "I didn't mean—"  
  
"Go to sleep, you two," said Helga sleepily from the other side of the fire. "I won't be waiting for you come morning."  
_  
Ariane's eyes fluttered open, and she stared at the ceiling in bewilderment before she remembered when she was. With a sigh she rolled over onto her side and dabbed at her hot, watery eyes with the edge of her blanket, wishing that Salazar were there with her. She closed her eyes tightly when she heard someone else enter the room. They puttered around for so long that another dream began and she was swept up by it so quickly that she didn't have time to see whom it was.  
  
_She was hiding.  
  
It wasn't exactly clear to her at this point why, but Ariane knew that she must stay where she was with no questions asked. The dreaming Ariane guessed that this memory was from when she was very small, perhaps only two or three years old. There were other people in this wet, earthy hiding place, but they were much older than she and much less frightened because they knew what was going on outside. They wouldn't answer her questions when she asked, and mostly ignored her as she sucked her thumb in the corner of the cellar.  
  
She was alone; for the first time in all her memories she had no idea where Salazar was.  
  
Ariane was very alone and very, very scared.  
  
_Hiss-shuck!  
  
_An arrow protruded from her shoulder, the brown feathers that flighted it waving before her eyes as she staggered. Someone had her hands as she toppled to the ground, someone cried "Ariane!" as the world spun itself into a knot and hid from her sight.  
_  
Ariane screamed and fell out of bed, tangled in her white sheets. She hit the floor with a loud thump that she was sure would rouse every man, woman and child in the building—Hogwarts?—and grabbed at her shoulder, certain that she would feel blood spouting from her wound, sure that in a moment sticky blood would being to flow over her fingers.  
  
"Good god, girl, what's the matter?" A woman in a flowered smock and white nightshirt came tearing out of a back room, her hat on askew. "Did you have a nightmare?"  
  
"Yes—but I'm fine. I'm sorry," she apologized without being sure what she was sorry for. "I didn't mean to wake you up." Clumsily Ariane tried to disentangle herself from her blankets. The woman helped her to her feet and straightened the white shift she was wearing in a motherly fashion, and then ordered her back into bed.  
  
"You may feel fine, but you've just had an extraordinarily traumatic experience!" she scolded, pushing Ariane down onto the pillow and tucking the blankets so tightly that Ariane couldn't move her legs. "Now just drink this. Tomorrow we'll see if you're up to walking about." She gave her a cup with something that steamed invitingly inside it. The girl hesitated, wondering if she ought to drink something offered by a woman she did not know. "Drink up, dear," the woman said kindly. "I'm Healer- certified."  
  
Healers? That was all right then. Salazar had wanted to be a Healer himself, but had become more interested in the herbology aspect of it than the others. Ariane obediently took a sip, making a face at the flavor, then lay back down. "What's your name?" she asked sleepily as her eyelids pressed down.  
  
"Madam Pomfrey," the Healer said, smiling and patting her shoulder. "Go to sleep, dear."  
  
_Her dream picked up where it had left off, with Helga bent over her. Her red hair was undone and damp from the bath she'd been taking, and when it fell around her face it made her look almost pretty. "Fetch the healer from the village," she ordered a man beyond Ariane's vision. "This is beyond my skill to heal."  
  
Ariane looked around wildly, her chest seemingly frozen, her ribs shattered by the heavy arrow. "I can't breathe," she gasped. Helga flipped her hair over her shoulder and became once more uncompromisingly plain with her eyes squinted in fear.  
  
"Godric!" she cried. "Godric, help!" It wasn't Godric who arrived next, but Rowena, black ink flecking her white skin like a pox. Her hair was tightly bound back as always, with an extra quill pen thrust into the braid above her right ear. It was amazing how clear everything was becoming, how the whole world was so sharp and defined it made Ariane's head hurt. The iron band around her chest would not let her breathe, and as the seconds ticked by she became more and more desperate.  
  
With a snap Godric appeared out of thin air, accompanied by the village Healer and his box. "We've got to get the arrow out or she'll suffocate," the Healer said immediately. "Someone hold her still."  
  
"Here, Ariane," Rowena whispered into her ear. "Bite down on this." A sky- blue leather bookmark Rowena had bought in London was fitted between her teeth, before Ariane could protest. Salazar was holding her hands tightly, his hair wild and his face hollow with fear. Ariane could not remember when he had gotten to her—but then again, she had been more than a little distracted—but then, the thought bothered her mind. Why hadn't Salazar been with her? They were always together, but for some reason she had been hiding away from him. Had she been doing something that he didn't approve of?  
  
"On three. One, two—" and the Healer pulled it out, with a wrench that made her scream the last air from her lungs as her ribcage expanded agonizingly and blood began to trickle, then to flow freely down the front of her dress. The dress was blue, but rapidly turned the brownish-red color of the mud in the hut where she'd first met Godric and Rowena, and she began to cry for the dress and for Rowena's precious bookmark that was now marred by the imprint of her teeth and for the terrified tears flowing down Salazar's face.  
  
"Get something on there to staunch the bleeding!" Rowena ordered. Without saying a word Helga removed her black shawl and doubled it up into a pad, which she pressed against Ariane's chest. It was soaked through in minutes. Ariane's arms and legs were starting to feel weightless and detached; her head was as heavy as a millstone. She was incredibly thirsty.  
  
"Salazar," she whispered from her low position on the ground. "What's happening? Who shot me?"  
  
"One of the Muggle hunters," Salazar replied, venom in his voice. "His shot went wide." His eyes behind his hair were red-rimmed and hard as obsidian. Ariane was frightened of him this way, and she wanted to tell him not to worry, it was only an accident, but then the blood loss caught up with her and she began to faint.  
  
"Water," Ariane mouthed soundlessly as her vision tilted and swirled. "I'm so thirsty."  
  
Ariane's eyes rolled uncontrollably, giving her views of the inside of the outer wall and of a young man she had never met before in any of her memories, with dark, coppery hair and a well-formed face that was contorted in fear for her. His eyes were his best feature, a green-blue medley that reminded Ariane of the sea, but his skin was pitted from the spotted sickness. This man—boy really, he couldn't be much older than sixteen—bent over and kissed her forehead, his long hair brushing her bloodless cheeks. It was a nice feeling. Ariane remembered being kissed by him before, not on her forehead, and she had liked it. No matter how hard she strained her memory, she couldn't remember his name.  
  
With a snarl Salazar pushed him away, his sorrow turning into rage. "Never touch her," he warned. "I'm the one who looks after her."  
  
_Ariane's eyes snapped open, and she sighed in frustration. She had finally been learning something pertinent to her death and then her stupid body woke up. Not only did she not find out who had shot her, but she also couldn't remember the boy's name. She tried to close her eyes again, hoping the dream-memory would start up again, but she was only greeted by the insides of her eyelids and a totally awake mind.  
  
"Awake again?"  
  
Ariane sat up, hoping that it was Madam Pomfrey, but instead it was Dumbledore. He was sitting at the foot of her bed, his eyes once more very grave. "Hello," she said shyly, pulling her blankets up to her chin.  
  
"I'm afraid I have to ask you a few more questions," he told her without preamble. "I've done some reading while you were asleep, and I've found out that, according to legend, Salazar Slytherin had a sister who died when he was twenty-four. She was buried off the Hogwarts grounds in what later became the Chamber of Secrets."  
  
Ariane blinked at him, trying to understand. "Chamber of Secrets?" she asked quizzically. "I've never heard of such a place."  
  
"Well, you wouldn't have been around for it's building, since you were apparently dead," Dumbledore said, a little harshly. "It's located under the shallow northern end of the lake, which would explain how you ended up washed onto our shores. However, it does not explain how you are alive over a thousand years after you died."  
  
He still thinks that I'm lying about who I am. Ariane gritted her teeth. "I'm not addled, and I'm not a liar. In my—my tomb, everyone left things. It's sort of a tribute to the dead, to bury them with things precious to their souls. Salazar left me a letter that explained what he'd done, and it said that he'd 'caught my soul before it passed to where he couldn't go' or something like that. I don't know how he did it. He was always much smarter than me."  
  
Dumbledore cleared his throat and continued. "That form of magic is called necromancy, and it usually requires a deal with a demon. Salazar must have loved you very much."  
  
"He did," Ariane said simply. "And I loved him very much."  
  
They studied each other for a long minute, and then Dumbledore refolded his hands and cleared his throat again. "I've asked a colleague of mine to help me determine the truth behind your story. Severus, please come in," he called, and another man entered the room. He was not tall, but he looked it, dressed in black from head to foot and standing very straight. His hair was long and black, and his eyes were as black as the holes in Ariane's memory. "Severus is a master of Legilimency," Dumbledore explained.  
  
"What's that?" Ariane asked apprehensively, drawing farther back behind her bedcovers. "I'm telling the truth, I swear it."  
  
Severus said nothing, but stared at her impassively. "Legilimency reveals thoughts that are hidden," Dumbledore explained. "So this may cure your amnesia and show us whether or not you are who you say you are." It was clear from their faces that neither man believed her story. Ariane flushed.  
  
Madam Pomfrey chose that moment to burst in, wearing practical blue robes and her odd headdress, her face full of wrath. "For pity's sake!" she cried. "Headmaster, she hasn't even had a full meal yet!" She walked purposefully over to Ariane and flung her arms around her patient, who recognized an ally when she had one. The silver-haired girl huddled into the protective circle of the nurse's arms.  
  
Dumbledore sighed ironically, and Ariane nearly laughed. This Headmaster knew when a battle was lost. "Madam Pomfrey, I'm quite sorry. I don't know what I was thinking." He stood and nodded to Severus, who had not spoken yet. "We'll be back in an hour." The two men left, leaving her alone with the nurse.  
  
"Thanks," Ariane said, swinging her legs off the side of the bed.  
  
"It's for your own good," Madam Pomfrey replied, supporting her as though she were a cripple. "Now, would you like a bath first, or breakfast?"

_Author's Note: Madam Pomfrey knows who wears the pants in her wing of Hogwarts...and Ariane's about to get mind-read--oh, excuse me Professor Snape--she's about to have the complex art of Legilimancy practiced on her. Review._


	3. The Girls Dorms

_"If dreams are like movies then memories are films about ghosts."--the Counting Crows_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 3: The Girls Dorms**  
  
An hour later, Ariane was quite clean, her hair was damp and shiny from her bath, and she had polished off four slices of toasted bread with sugar and butter, two eggs, and four small sausages. Madam Pomfrey had also given her a glass of something orange that Ariane had never tasted before, but she didn't much like it for it was very tart. To her relief she had also been provided with clothes, though they were more than a little indecent by her standards. She had been given a gray skirt that barely reached past her knees, a gray wool vest, and a shirt with a lot of buttons up the front. Feeling more than a little self-conscious, she tugged the hem down to the tops of the stockings that she now wore.  
  
There was a knock upon the door. Ariane gulped as the fifth piece of toast turned to ash in her mouth, swallowed, then shot the door a panicked look. Madam Pomfrey patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and let Dumbledore and Severus back in.  
  
"Are you ready?" Dumbledore asked kindly.  
  
"Ready for what?" Ariane returned defensively.  
  
"I'm going to take a look inside your head," Severus said, speaking for the first time. His voice was low and controlled and frightened her with its lack of emotion. "It won't hurt."  
  
Ariane gripped the arms of her chair, but said nothing. Severus approached her with his wand out, paused directly in front of her, then turned to Dumbledore. "If this should go wrong, snap both of us out of it," he said.  
  
"Go wrong?" Ariane cried, but it was too late. He had muttered "_Legilimens_!" under his breath, and her mind was flowing past like a brook, full of images.  
  
She was hiding in a cellar while the villagers burned a witch above, running through a wood with Salazar while a shouting farmer chased them away from his fields with a scythe, climbing up an apple tree to steal the fruit of another farmer in another time. She was three; seven, nine—and then the images began to speed up as she relaxed into the feeling. Eager to get the experience over with, Ariane opened her mind all the way, and the thoughts and images became a blinding rush of white.  
  
Her head began to throb as faces flicked past: she recognized Rowena and Godric, saw Helga as a flash of red hair and an apron stained with blackberry juice and saffron-colored paint, and then the boy from her dream flashed past with a smile, so close she thought that he was about to kiss her. Her head burned with a pain so intense that it felt like molten metal had been poured into her ears.  
  
Someone was yelling in pain, but it wasn't her. A voice commanded "Snap them out of it!" Ariane saw a slow-motion memory of Salazar being dreadfully angry, storming around and slamming things, then her sight jolted and she was staring at the ceiling of the hospital wing from her back.  
  
"Good Lord," someone said from behind her as Ariane pushed herself to a seated position. She rubbed her sore head, wincing as it pounded once again, and squinted across the room. The dark-haired man, the one who had cried out, was crouched on the floor with his head in his hands. "Severus? Severus Snape, are you all right?" Madam Pomfrey bent over him, a furrow between her eyebrows.  
  
"I'm fine," he snapped, pushing her hand away from his face. "Just overloaded." Snape shook his head as though to rid himself of the thoughts he had extracted from Ariane and rubbed his temples. He looked straight at her, his face grim. "She's not lying, Dumbledore. I've seen it all."  
  
"But I haven't," Ariane protested. "I don't remember much more that what I did before."  
  
"Be glad that you haven't," Snape told her wryly as he got to his feet. "You were murdered, and it wasn't an accident."  
  
_Hiss-shuck!_ Ariane pressed a hand to the scar on the left side of her chest. "Who did it?" she whispered.  
  
"I don't know," he replied. "I caught a few ideas from your mind though."  
  
"But when will I know all that I've forgotten?" she asked, yanking one of her silver curls in agitation. "I know that it doesn't matter much to you," she began heatedly, "but I'd rather like to know as much about myself as you do."  
  
"I have no doubts that all your memory will come back," Dumbledore said soothingly. "It's probably for the best that it didn't all come back at once." He stroked his silver mustache thoughtfully, his blue eyes twinkling at her. "There's also the question of what's to happen to you."  
  
"Can't I stay here?" she asked, glancing at the ward's walls. "At Hogwarts?"  
  
"You'll have to, for the time being," Dumbledore told her. "But we'll have to make arrangements for you during the summer."  
  
Ariane shrugged. "That's fine," she said, trying to remind herself that she knew no one in this world. Salazar, Godric, Helga—they had all died long ago, and by now even their bones were dust. "I think I'll have to get used to relying on strangers," she said shyly.  
  
"That's probably true," Madam Pomfrey said with a concerned look. "I'm sure that the staff could pool enough together to get you some second-hand school things." Snape looked as though he would rather part with both of his ears before giving her a dull quill pen and an empty bottle of ink.  
  
Dumbledore, shooting a glance at Snape that held more concealed humor than Ariane preferred to see. "I'm sure that I can get that money from the Ministry of Magic, Poppy," he said with a kind smile. "They keep a reserve for magical orphans."  
  
"She'll need a surname if she's to enroll, and it can't be Slytherin or it'll raise questions," said Madam Pomfrey, planting her hands on her hips.  
  
Snape answered before Dumbledore. "Her surname's Somerled." He didn't explain this, but stated it as fact.  
  
Ariane suppressed the urge to ask what on earth the Ministry of Magic was and how in heaven or hell he knew her surname when her own brother had never known and simply smiled, seething with the desire to know as much about her past as this complete stranger named Severus Snape.  
  
Ariane stared at herself in the mirror of the tiled room that lay off of her new bedroom. The bedroom was very nice, though a little crowded since she was sharing it with four other girls, but the bathroom was wondrous. Not only was it like a privy and a bathing house in one, it contained the most perfect mirror Ariane had ever since. It was huge, as tall as she was. The only mirror Ariane had seen before was the hand mirror Helga had inherited from her grandmother, and it was dinged and chipped.  
  
She waved at the girl in the mirror, who waved back. This girl was thin and pale from her time underground, but her skin tone promised a good color once the sun came out. The face was not particularly lovely, for though it had good bones the mouth was too small and the eyes too wide-set for any semblance of beauty. She had very pretty hair—her hair was long and the same shiny silver as the faucets in the sink—and her eyes were wide and violet, surrounded by dark eyelashes. Ariane prodded her collarbone critically where it showed through her blouse, distressed by her unhealthy appearance.  
  
The door to the bedroom slammed. Ariane now knew what a dormitory was: it was a room shared by the students of Hogwarts. So now there were other people in the dormitory, and she would have to go meet them.  
  
"Hey Pansy, what's this?" asked a slightly nasal voice from the other side of the door. "There's five beds in here!"  
  
"I know, Daphne, I can see it well as you," said another girl's voice. "I didn't think we were getting a new student."  
  
"They didn't bring much," said Daphne critically. Ariane could hear the other girl's shoes clicking together as she fidgeted, and wondered when she should leave the bathroom. It wouldn't do to have Pansy or Daphne throw the door open and see her crouched here like a fool.  
  
The door banged again, and a third girl joined them: "This is new," said the third in a low, wry voice. "Has Millicent gotten so large that we need an extra bed for her as well as her own?"  
  
"Don't be too cutting, Tuyet, or you'll slice off your own tongue," Pansy told the third girl with a tinge of irritation in her voice. "I wonder if she's from Durmstrang."  
  
There was more shuffling around in the dormitory, and Ariane was just working up the courage to open the door when it was opened for her. A tall, small-boned girl with almond-shaped blue eyes and straight dark blonde hair started, her eyes widening. "Daphne, tell Millicent she can have the extra bed, our guest prefers the bathroom."  
  
"Hello," said Ariane nervously. "I'm Ariane Somerled." The surname rolled awkwardly off her tongue, but the other girl didn't seem to notice.  
  
"Tuyet Qui-Minh," she said. "Where are you from, anyway?"  
  
"I was home-schooled until a few weeks ago," she lied, using the story Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore had helped her think up. "But my mother died so I was sent here."  
  
"Really?" said Tuyet, raising her pale eyebrows. "Sounds like fun. Welcome to Hogwarts."  
  
A shorter girl with thick brown hair and an unfortunately squashed-looking face peered around Tuyet, her small eyes flicking up and down Ariane in an instant. "So you're the new girl."  
  
"No, really," drawled Tuyet, brushing her fringe out of her eyes. "Back up, Pansy, I want out of this bathroom. It's certainly clean but I'm not ready to pitch a tent on the tiles."  
  
Ariane followed Tuyet out into the bedroom, where she saw Daphne. Daphne was a pretty girl with even features and gray-blue eyes set perfectly in an oval face the color of coffee with cream. The hair that fell in tight, springy ringlets around her face was a golden brown, and she moved gracefully. Her main fault was the constant wrinkle in her forehead. She looked as though thinking was a full-time job and not a pastime as it was for everyone else.  
  
"Your hair is so usual," she gushed, "Whatever do you use to dye it?"  
  
Ariane raised a quizzical eyebrow. "I don't dye it."  
  
Daphne looked confused for a moment, but let it pass, choosing instead to flop down on her bed and sigh dramatically. "I can't believe all the homework McGonagall set for us. I'll never get it done."  
  
"You don't need to strain your pretty little head," Tuyet said in mock- sympathy, patting Daphne on the head. "Just flutter your eyelashes at Nott like you did last week, and he'll gladly do your homework. Blow a kiss at him and you might be able to get a foot massage in with the deal."  
  
"Are you a pureblood?" shot Pansy, whose eyes had not left Ariane this whole time. The look on her face left no illusion that Ariane was as unwelcome as the plague.  
  
"I'm a witch, aren't I?" Ariane replied. Pansy's small eyes narrowed further, but she simply flounced over to her own bed. Tuyet was just opening her mouth to ask another question when the door banged open for the third time. The last girl to enter was head and shoulders taller than her four roommates and as broad as the wall behind her. She was ugly with no words to spare her from the truth: her face was as contorted and pockmarked as an old crone's, and her sparse, dirt-brown hair was cut in a short, unflattering style.  
  
"Hallo, Millicent," Tuyet said jovially. "Nice to see you in motion."  
  
Millicent grunted and flopped down on her bed with a crash that shook the portraits on the wall. Ariane waited for a moment, to see if Millicent was going to say anything, but there was simply an uncomfortable pause and then Daphne and Pansy began talking again.  
  
"Have you had any thoughts about the next Quidditch game?" Pansy asked, perching on the end of Daphne's bed. "It's Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw."  
  
"Yes," replied Daphne with a grin. "I really hope that Michael Corner doesn't wear trousers beneath his robes."  
  
"That could cause some uncomfortable chafing, seeing as he's mounted on a broomstick," Tuyet observed blandly, then turned to Ariane who was completely lost. "You want to meet some other Slytherins?" Ariane, eager not to be left in the room with Pansy, nodded and followed the taller girl out of the room. They walked down a curved staircase to the oblong Common room. Ariane had smiled when she first saw it, for it spoke of Salazar's architecture from its serpentine pillars to its low ceiling. Now that it was full of other people her own age, it didn't bring a smile to her face—more like a feeling of impending doom to her stomach.  
  
"Hey there, Tuyet!" a tall boy with springy black curls called from his reclined position on a low couch. "What did you get on—hey, who's your friend?"  
  
"What, no cozy greeting for me?" Tuyet said flirtatiously. "This is Ariane—Somerled. She's in our year. Ariane, this is Blaise Zabini."  
  
"Weird hair," said someone Ariane couldn't see. "Where's she from?" asked another.  
  
"Budge up," Tuyet ordered a couple of younger girls that had taken over another leather sofa. They moved without complaint, though they gave Ariane inquisitive, somewhat hostile looks. "All right, ready to go through everyone who matters?" she asked her silver-haired companion.  
  
Pansy appeared behind the couch opposite Ariane and Tuyet, dangling her arms possessively over the shoulders of a handsome boy with neatly groomed blonde hair. She shot Ariane a look reminiscent of a territorial dog. "All right," Tuyet mused. "That's Blaise Zabini, who isn't nearly as handsome as he thinks he is—"  
  
"Knows he is, my silver tongued friend," Blaise interjected, running a hand over the top of his springy curls.  
  
"—And this odd little fellow is Theodore Nott"—a skinny boy with raggedly cut brown hair that hung in his eyes nodded unsmilingly—"You've met Pansy and Daphne, of course, no doubt their wittiness has made permanent brands in your mind"—Daphne smiled in an amiable way that made Ariane certain that she'd already forgotten her, and Pansy narrowed her eyes—"And this two trolls are Crabbe and Goyle." Two boys seated on either side of the handsome boy blinked blankly at her. Ariane blinked back, unsure if they were really as dumb as trolls or simply looked it. "This is Draco Malfoy," Tuyet said simply, waving a hand at the handsome boy.  
  
For a moment Ariane wondered if Tuyet was going to follow up this statement with another of her typical stinging remarks, but there was a blank silence broken by a nervous giggle from one of the second years Tuyet had kicked off the couch. "So," said Blaise into the silence. "Does anyone know what the odds are for the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw game Satuday?"  
  
"I think it's three to one in favor of Hufflepuff," said a third year boy with a grimace. "Surprisingly enough."  
  
"I thought Ravenclaw was pretty strong last year," Daphne said, vaulting over the couch and taking a seat on the floor, her arm propped on Draco's lap. Pansy didn't move, but her hackles rose almost visibly as her eyes snapped to the prettier girl.  
  
"Considering that we were slaughtered—" Tuyet began, her curiously almond- shaped eyes wide with innocence, but then she caught a look from Draco and changed what she was going to say. "Which was, undoubtedly due to luck on their part." Her eyes narrowed, a little resentfully Ariane thought, but she kept her face cheerful.  
  
"But this year they've got the most abysmal Beaters I've ever seen in my life—worse then those two louts the Gryffindor team glued on broomsticks last year," Blaise protested. "Hufflepuff has a fighting chance even without Diggory."  
  
"I didn't think there were worse Beaters," Pansy said with a grin. "Though I do know that there aren't any worse keepers than the one Gryffindor has."  
  
Smiles were exchanged around the group. "Although," Daphne said airily, "he did manage to get Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup." There was a pause, and then Draco laughed.  
  
"Weasel King and his luck," he said in his cultured voice. "I'm sure we can bring that to a halt, he's far too easy to mess up." The other Slytherins laughed.  
  
"Should we add more to the song?" Pansy asked, her eyes sparkling with malice so that she looked almost pretty in a cruel way. "We never got to that verse about his mother."  
  
"Come on," Tuyet said in bored tones. "We can't add on, we've got to start afresh. New song for a new year, eh?"  
  
"And I'm sure we're creative enough," Blaise added.  
  
"And we have enough dirt on the Gryffindors," Nott added quietly. Ariane jumped; she had forgotten that he was there. He flicked his hair out of his eyes and smiled thinly. "You will not believe the things we've got on Hermione Granger."  
  
"When Nott says 'we' he means 'I'," Tuyet explained to Ariane. "He's so unnoticeable that he picks up the oddest things." She blinked across at Nott, who shrugged, apparently not offended by his nondescript appearance.  
  
"I didn't realize that nobody knew who I was until fourth year," he said. "And then I realized the possibilities."  
  
"So what do we have on Hermione Granger?" asked Pansy Parkinson eagerly. Draco twisted his head to smile up at her without really smiling. His lips didn't part, and Ariane began to wonder if he had bad teeth, but so far everyone she had seen had remarkably good teeth compared to those she remembered from her pre-Hogwarts days. It didn't make sense that the most influential person in the group of Slytherins would be lacking in any way.  
  
"Pansy, we don't just have things on Hermione Granger, we have the maniac brainiac herself. She's locked in our wardrobe," said Tuyet with a straight face. "I had to tempt her with thoughts of Weasley, however, so I feel much too ill for questioning."  
  
Everyone in the group shuddered and made a face. One of the second years actually gagged, though the next moment she dissolved into giggles. "Weasley the freckled wonder," said Draco lazily, "And Granger the Beaver. There's just enough truth in this to make Weasley start dropping the Quaffle again." Pansy smiled, and Ariane was very glad that she wasn't Hermione Granger.  
  
"It's pretty true, though," Nott said with a shrug. "They're like an old married couple."  
  
"That's nothing," Blaise scoffed. "Tuyet is a married couple unto herself." The blonde girl with the acid tongue threw a pillow at him, and then grinned suddenly. She gave Blaise another flirtatious sideways look.  
  
"So," she said, resting her chin on her hands. "What about those odds, Blaise?"

_Author's Note: Ariane doesn't talk in Old English because typing it gives me nosebleeds and it's devilishly hard to understand. Since nosebleeds short out my keyboard, please understand me when I don't insert thee, thy, thou, and forsooth every other word._


	4. Hogwarts

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."-the Counting Crows_  
  
**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter Four: Hogwarts**  
  
Ariane spent a lot of time awake that night. She had slept for a thousand years—she didn't think losing one night was going to kill her. Perched in the window, she looked out and up into the green-blue waters of the lake, seeing shadows of fish and a giant tentacle-covered thing that she didn't know the name of, and once when the water became very still the white silhouette of the moon. Her breath made wet clouds on the cold glass windows, but she was thinking of other things.  
  
Memories seemed to be leaking into her brain at a much faster rate. Now they swept her away when she was awake and tracing patterns her steamy breathe on the window, when she was standing in the bathroom staring at herself in the mirror, trying to find signs of the man that had given her his surname: Somerled. She even remembered things while she was hovering over the sink with a pair of scissors in hand; cutting her overlong hair into something that resembled the other girls'. It had turned out decently, she thought, especially as she had only learned how to wield the scissors that night. Ariane brushed her new fringe out of her eyes—she had made it too long on purpose, since every time she pushed her hair away she was reminded of the brother that had stolen her away from Death.  
  
Had Salazar though that he had failed; had he died thinking that he hadn't been able to save his sister from the forever grasp of Death? Snape had said that her brother had left Hogwarts six years after she died and died himself ten years after that. What had made him leave? Did he know who it was who had killed her? Ariane put a hand to her mouth. Maybe that was why Salazar had left—he couldn't bear to be in the same castle with the person who had murdered his sister. He must have found out.  
  
Ariane rested her head against the cold glass and tapped her head firmly against it, as though hoping to knock the memory out of hiding. Of all things for her not to remember. She had tried not trying, in the hopes that it would come out if not sought, like a cat, and she had tried trying until her head pounded and her eyes watered.  
  
The funny thing was, she could remember most other things. A few gaps had not yet been filled in—when she was a small girl, some holes between girlhood and Hogwarts, but Hogwarts itself was crystal clear up until she turned fifteen. There it went spotty once more, ending with the hiss-shuck and the bloody mess in the grass. And the boy with pockmarks, who was so clearly precious to her that she wanted him back almost as much as she desired to see Salazar again. His name had been lost in the channels of her mind, but his face was one of the clearest.  
  
She traced the cold glass with her finger, feeling beneath her fingers the soft flesh of a face, pitted here and there with pockmarks. He had a long nose and a mesmerizing way of flaring his nostrils when he was excited or angry. Sharp cheekbones gave him a slightly predatory look that was softened by his long hair, a rich dark copper that she had twirled idly around her fingers once—it made her marvel that she'd ever been able to do such a thing idly, since now that he was long dust she was fascinated by his every feature. The eyes were what she remembered best—sea green, with red eyelashes—and also the graphic feeling of kissing him, his hands on either side of her face and the rough bark of a tree pressing into her back.  
  
They had been hiding from someone.  
  
Ariane rested her chin on her knees, her eyelids growing steadily heavier. It might have been Godric, who she'd been betrothed to at one point. She had a hazy, indistinct memory of that troth being broken at some point, but maybe it had been rearranged; Salazar was moody with such things. A memory of Salazar being horribly angry rose to the top of her mind, followed by a distinct feeling of guilt. Ariane closed her heavy eyelids and leaned against the window, trying to make the memory clearer. She had done something wrong...but she couldn't remember what...and she had apologized...but her admission of guilt had driven him into a fury...that was it.  
  
"Ariane? Hey, wake up," someone shook her and Ariane opened her gummy eyes. Tuyet's curiously slanted eyes looked back at her uncertainly. "I'm not sure what the custom is where you come from, but here we sleep in these nice cushy things called beds."  
  
"I couldn't sleep," she explained, wincing as a muscle in her neck pulled. "So I was watching the water." When she tried to get off the windowsill her legs got tangled and she fell.  
  
Tuyet caught her before she hit the floor. "Whoa there. You've still got a couple hours before breakfast, try and get some quality sleep. You're going to need it." She steered the silver-haired girl to her bed, and Ariane fell against the pillows, asleep before she could thank Tuyet.  
  
To her surprise, the next thing that met her eyes was watery sunlight, filtered through the green lake. Someone was shaking her roughly, and then another voice called "Don't worry about her, Millicent. If she misses breakfast it's not our problem." Ariane rolled over and stared blankly at the ceiling, then, remembering where she was, sat up and looked about. Everyone had gone downstairs to breakfast except the massive Millicent, who was struggling to tie a necktie around her thick neck.  
  
Ariane vaulted up and tugged on the uniform at the end of the bed, letting the black robes fall over her head. She splashed cold water on her face, scrubbed at her crusty eyes, and looped the necktie around her neck without bothering to tie it. Ruffling her fingers through her curls in an effort to make them look less slept-upon, Ariane hopped down the stairs while trying to put on her shoes.  
  
As it turned out, her haste wasn't really necessary. The four long tables in the Great Hall were only half-filled with sleepy students, though it already contained more students than Ariane had ever seen in Salazar's Hogwarts. The huge flags that contained the various symbols of the houses abated any nervousness she had felt about accidentally sitting down at the wrong table, and she took her seat under the silver serpent. She snatched a few pieces of toast from a passing platter, spread them with jam, and then sprinkled sugar on top of that. Ariane chewed thoughtfully as her memories played once more.  
  
_"What are these?" she asked Salazar, who was trying to thread a needle to repair a green pendent. He was squinting and repeatedly jabbing the thread at the needle with no success. Ariane took it from him and threaded it in one try; he gave her a dirty look.  
  
"Show off," he grumbled. "'S not my fault I can't do a woman's work."  
  
"I know," said Ariane patiently. "What are they, Salazar?"  
  
"My crest, for Hogwarts. It's going on a pole above my House." He shook out the green folds to display a serpent embroidered in silver threads over a black herbalist's symbol. A large three-cornered hole marred the end of the serpent's tail. Without being asked Ariane took up her own needle and thread and began on one side of the tear. "Thanks," he said, digging his needle into the other side. "So how do you like Hogwarts so far?"  
  
"There's not many people my age," Ariane said, trying to improve her stitches, which were not small enough to suit her. "Seems like all the fourteen-year-olds are in the south."  
  
Salazar frowned and stuck himself with the needle. "God's eyes!" He sucked on the finger he had jabbed and spoke around it: "Aren't there a few children from the village?"  
  
"They're boys," Ariane squinted at the fabric. "Isn't there any better light? I'm going half blind in here."  
  
"I'm a boy," Salazar pointed out, bringing the candle closer. "Look, if you're nervous about meeting them I could introduce you."  
  
Ariane blushed. "I'm not nervous," she said uncomfortably. "It's just...well, I feel like you wouldn't like me talking to them."  
  
Salazar stabbed himself again. "Damn!" He shook his hand as Ariane finished her leg of the tear and started on his, issuing a steady stream of curses as blood squeezed out of his fingertip. "Whatever gave you that idea?" Ariane shrugged blandly and tied off her thread near Salazar's messy stitches. "I'll introduce you to them tomorrow. They're good lads—the tanner's and the blacksmith's sons, aren't they?"  
  
"Yes," muttered Ariane as she rose to her feet. "Good luck with the flags."  
_  
The memory skipped ahead, and she was lying on her back with roots poking into her spine, her fingers entwined with someone else's.  
  
_"That's the Great Bear," he was saying in a soft voice, his free arm pointing at the sky. "And over there—that's Andromeda."  
  
"Who Perseus saved from the sea serpent," Ariane replied, her voice a murmur. "Draco." She pointed at the long string of stars, tracing the line with her finger. It took her a moment to realize that she was being watched, and she twisted her head to look at her companion.  
  
"You're like a star yourself, you know," he said, twirling one of her silver curls around his finger. "Just as special."  
  
"There are thousands of stars," she replied, looking up again. "Hundreds of thousands."  
  
"But each one is different, in a way," he persisted, the grass rustling as he turned on his side. "Some glow blue, others yellow, some brighter than others."  
  
"Sirius is the brightest," Ariane replied in an effort to bring the conversation to something she understood. What she didn't understand were the strange feelings of hope and desire running along her spine. There was silence filled with the small noises of the forest, and then he said:  
  
"You didn't tell Salazar that we were out here, did you?" Ariane flinched but said nothing, then the other boy pulled himself to a half-sitting position. "Ariane?" he asked again. When she remained silent he propped an arm on either side of her and brought his grinning face within an inch of hers.  
  
"Get off!" Ariane said, giggling. "Of course I didn't."  
  
He laughed, and in that infinitesimal pause she saw stars reflecting from her eyes to his, and the stars of Draco tangled in his red hair. Sticks were digging into her back and she took his face and brought it down to hers and the crickets were chirping and the brightest star of all watched them as they kissed in the long grass of the field.  
_  
"Earth to new girl," Blaise whistled and waved his hands in front of her face. "You're losing your sugar rush."  
  
Ariane blushed and grabbed the piece of toast that had fallen into her lap. "Thanks," she said, sponging sugar-gritty jelly from the front of her robes.  
  
"Don't mention it. Snape told me to give you this," Blaise handed her a rolled piece of parchment, "And he also told me that he expects to see you in his office before any of your classes begin."  
  
Ariane unrolled the parchment and scanned her schedule, noting that she had Charms and Potions that morning and History of Magic, double Herbology and a Flying lesson in the afternoon. "Wait!" she said as Blaise turned to go. "Where's Snape's office?" According to this schedule and the large clock on the wall, she had to fit him in before Charms began in fifteen minutes. Her schedule was packed—she was taking six classes and had Flying lessons twice per week. Flying? Ariane wondered as she waited for Blaise to talk, like on a broomstick? How dreadful!  
  
"Down that hallway, take the first left you see, and then straight until you get to the dungeons. Those are pretty unmistakable. On your right." Blaise waved towards the passage she'd come in by, then went off to sit next to Tuyet, one of his hands tangling in her blonde hair. She pretended not to like it, but Ariane had seen the smile that passed over her face. Her heart ached as she thought of hair the color of dark copper.  
  
Stuffing the schedule into her pocket, Ariane clambered out of her seat and started down the passageway, turning left at the first passageway she saw. Without a thought she put out her hand and braced herself on the wall as a dizzy spell washed over her.  
  
"See this," Salazar ordered her proudly, running his hands over the wall. "I did all this myself, and doesn't it look fine?"  
  
"Ariane." Snape shook her lightly, his black eyes unreadable as always. "Wake up."  
  
"This was part of Hogwarts when I was a little girl," she said softly, her eyes unfocused.  
  
Snape shook her harder, so that her teeth clacked together uncomfortably. "You need to stay in the present day, Ariane," he growled, his surly face an inch from hers.  
  
Her eyes snapped back into focus. "Sorry," she murmured, looking away. "I can't help it."  
  
"You'd better learn to help it," he said bruskly, releasing her with an abruptness that was rude. "You'll be in trouble if you don't pay attention in class." Ariane watched him walk away, her mouth slightly open in surprise at this rough treatment. "Follow me," he told her, speaking as though she were a half-wit, and she followed resentfully. He was going to make her late to Charms, which she'd never been particularly quick at. Not only that, she realized with a sinking stomach, but if she was late she would have to walk in to a class full of people she didn't know and they would stare at her. The thought made her shiver.  
  
"In here."  
  
A familiar smell rose to greet her, the pungent, slightly rotten odor of potion ingredients. "You teach Potions?" she asked before she could stop herself.  
  
Snape looked back at her, every pore oozing with dislike. "Yes, I do," he said stiffly. "My office." He gestured her into a small room filled with jars and pickled things and a few barrels that Ariane was certain contained either dragon liver or blood—nothing else could be so pungent. She inhaled deeply and almost smiled but caught herself first: there was a spectacular thing on the table, filled with a silver light that shifted like nothing of this world. Unconsciously she reached out to it, wanting to cup the silver lights in her hands.  
  
"Don't touch it," Snape snapped.  
  
"It's beautiful," Ariane replied.  
  
He sighed and rubbed his temples. "It's a Pensieve. It holds thoughts and memories." Stalking across his office, he threw back at her, "It's not supposed to be beautiful."  
  
Ariane looked at it—she couldn't stop, it was hypnotic—until Snape prodded the contents with his wand. They swirled and turned dark, reflecting a starry night and two people lying on their backs, stargazing. The memory was so fresh in Ariane's mind that she jumped backwards. Her face flushed at the girl she recognized as herself kissed the red-haired boy. "Stop it!" she demanded, cheeks burning with humiliation. "You haven't any business watching that."  
  
"You've forgotten that I've seen almost all the memories hidden away inside your mind. Dumbledore has seen them too, now that they are in the Pensieve." His eyes fixed insolently on hers, Snape prodded the contents and Ariane and the boy rippled away, replaced by a dark cellar. Ungodly screams were coming from above the ground, the screams of a woman being burned alive, and a silver-haired toddler sucked her thumb in the corner of a cellar. Another ripple and she was clambering down inside the quarry, her skirts shredded by rocks and her face stretched with laughter, yet another and she was standing in a dark corner with the boy and being kissed.  
  
"Stop!" she cried. "I can't watch anymore." He raised his eyebrows at her but allowed the thoughts to become the opaque silver mist.  
  
"You'll have to see them all sooner or later," he told her. "This Pensieve will always be here for you to look at whenever you want. You will be required to visit at least three times a week, though."  
  
"I suppose you'll have to be here," Ariane said sullenly.  
  
Snape shrugged and his mouth curled into a smirk. "Dumbledore or myself, yes." Ariane didn't reply, instead staring down at the indentations her fingernails had made in the palms of her hands. The silence stretched until Snape broke it. "Ah," he said, remembering something. "This is for you."  
  
He handed her a long, slim box that, when she opened it, contained a wand that shone with new polish. Ariane took it out reverently, feeling the wood warm in her hands. "Is this Olivanders'?" she asked, turning it this way and that. "It looks exactly like my first wand."  
  
"Yes, special order," Snape said. "Olivander keeps an extensive stock, luckily for you."  
  
Experimentally Ariane twirled the wand, and then pointed it at one of the jars full of eyeballs. "Accio!" she said, and it zoomed towards her and landed gently in her outstretched palm. She grinned at Snape's annoyance. "Haven't done that in about a thousand years," she shrugged idly, sticking the wand into her pocket. "Tell Mr. Olivander that it's lovely."  
  
Snape gave her a long look then turned away. "Get out of my office."  
  
She hesitated, her mind full of stars. "Do you know what his name was?" she asked, her cheeks blushing once more. "The boy?"  
  
For a moment it looked as though he would refuse to tell her, but then he sighed. "His name," he told her grudgingly, "was Laramy Ferrer." When she did not leave, but stood there with the name on her lips like a prayer, Snape snarled, "Get out." Ariane nearly skipped away, her heart so light that she felt as though she'd really died this time. Died and gone to heaven.  
  
This feeling didn't last long—only until she realized that not only was she late to Charms, she had no idea where the class was located. Though the schedule did contain room numbers, nothing seemed to be located where the number suggested. The hallways were also deserted except for the occasional ghost, and Ariane didn't have enough courage to ask one of them for directions. She had walked for nearly half an hour when she finally spotted another student.  
  
"Hello there!" she called, trotting up to him, trying to control the rush of blood to her face. What was her problem with blushing today? It was most embarrassing. "I'm sorry to bother you, but do you know where the Charms classroom is? I can't seem to find it."  
  
"Sure," he said, pointing to the opposite side of the school. "I don't know who gave you directions, but this isn't anywhere near Charms. It's way over in the east wing, third floor." He squinted at her, and then grinned as though he'd hit upon something extraordinary. She supposed he was good-looking, in a sort of dark way, even if he was obviously too vain to do something about his nearsightedness.  
  
Ariane sighed. "This school is huge," she told him, in order to explain away her apparent stupidity about Hogwarts. "I'll never learn my way around."  
  
"Are you a first year?" the boy asked in confusion. "You don't look—"  
  
"I'm in the sixth year," she replied, trying to keep the conversation short. She was already very late to Charms, and if she didn't get clearer directions she would miss it entirely.  
  
"What House? I've never seen you before..." his eyes lit upon the green and silver badge stitched to her black robes. "Oh. You're a Slytherin." He face fell.  
  
"Yes," she said, confused. Why on earth would he look so disappointed by that? "Is that a problem?"  
  
"No," he said hurriedly. "No, it's not." But he went off faster than Ariane thought necessary, and didn't look back. "So much for clear directions," she grumbled, and traipsed off in the direction he had indicated: east wing, third floor. To her great surprise, she recognized the section of the building—it had once been Rowena's workshop, except that when she had known it, it had been on the ground floor.  
  
"Ariane!" someone hissed urgently. "In here!" Ariane saw Tuyet's blonde hair whisk out of sight around a doorframe and followed it. It was her Charms class, and they were packing up. She'd missed the lesson entirely. Grinding her teeth in vexation, Ariane walked through whispering students and introduced herself to the tiny teacher (who had to stand on his desk to speak to her face), Professor Flitwick.  
  
"It's quite all right," he chirped when she explained her lateness. "Professor Snape has already assured me that you're quite competent in Charms."  
  
What does he know? Ariane thought crossly. Oh, right. Everything. "That was kind of him," she said politely, resisting the urge to turn around and give the two giggling girls in the front row something to giggle about. They weren't even trying to be quiet as they talked about her.  
  
"Look at her hair!"  
  
"And that face?"  
  
"Do you think she's anorexic?"  
  
"What else? How could she be so skinny otherwise?"  
  
Ariane dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and seriously considered turning around and giving the up-talker something to chew on, but instead concentrated on what Professor Flitwick was saying. "—And I hope you're familiar with your basic Mood-Altering Charms, like the Cheering Charms and such."  
  
"Yes," she assured him, half-listening to the girls behind her.  
  
"Where does she come from anyway?"  
  
"I haven't got a clue? But I hear that she spent a week in the hospital wing?"  
  
"My god, have you two got anything better to do that talk in questions? You're giving me a headache with your stupid conversation. Shut up—yes, I am talking to you." Ariane twisted enough to give Tuyet a grateful smile.  
  
Professor Flitwick sighed gustily. "You can go have a seat next to Miss Bulstrode," he squeaked. "Class should be ending any minute now."  
  
Ariane took a seat next to her massive classmate, who ignored her, and leaned across the aisle. "Thanks," she told Tuyet. "I was two seconds from giving them something to talk about."  
  
"Don't mention it," Tuyet replied with a grin. "I use every chance I can get to mock those two. They're about as interesting as toe jam and talk at full bellow."  
  
"Just because we can have a meaningful conversation without insulting someone?" the dark-haired girl said, flipping her thick hair over her shoulders.  
  
"A conversation takes two intelligences, Padma, and between you and Mandy you've got about one."  
  
Blaise laughed. "So that's what, a monologue?"  
  
"I suppose," Tuyet smiled through her hair at him. "Not a particularly witty one, though."  
  
"Kevin? Are you just going to let her mock me?" said Mandy, who was pale, freckled, and only saved from plainness by her long eyelashes.  
  
Kevin swallowed visibly. "Now look here," he said firmly. "You can't just—you know—make fun of her when she didn't do anything."  
  
Blaise leaned across the desk and patted Kevin on the back heartily. "Don't worry about it, Kev—she won't remember most of it after the wild loving you probably have in store for her." Kevin went purple and stared straight down at his desk.  
  
Ariane giggled despite herself. "Is this how it always is?" she asked her blonde-haired friend.  
  
"Mostly. Not always with the Gryffindors, because they know some nasty hexes," Tuyet said seriously. "A few of them practically turned Draco into a—" she closed her mouth as Draco turned around in his desk and glared at her.  
  
"Don't talk about that," he said lightly, an edge on his voice that made Ariane want to vanish. He turned his pale eyes on Ariane. "Since you're a Slytherin, you should know this: nobody gossips about Draco Malfoy and doesn't regret it. Nobody at all." Draco smiled at Tuyet, his eyes still on the silver-haired girl. "Ask your new friend." He turned back to the front of the classroom just as the dismissal bell rang.  
  
Ariane followed Tuyet out the door as they began the hike across the building to Snape's classroom. "What's he talking about?" she asked in an undertone as they turned a corner and went down a flight of stairs. Tuyet pretended to be tremendously busy stowing away her Charms homework, but Pansy leaned across her with a grin of grim pleasure.  
  
"Third year she thought she'd spread false rumors about Draco," Pansy whispered conspiratorially. "But one day she woke up and found that spreading nasty stories was just about impossible." She moved off down the hall with a meaningful glance at Tuyet.  
  
Ariane gazed at the blonde girl inquisitively until Tuyet sighed and explained. "While I was sleeping, someone—and I've a very shrewd idea who—snuck into our dormitory and hexed off my tongue."  
  
She gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "You got it back, didn't you?"  
  
"Well of course," her friend said, brushing her fringe out of her eyes. "But they left a note saying that if I went to Madam Pomfrey there'd be consequences."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Mainly that the hex would never wear off. If I kept mum about it, then it would be gone the next day."  
  
"And you didn't tell anyone?" Ariane asked, watching her feet and Tuyet by turns as they went down the stairs. Her blonde hair swished against her shoulders as she shook her head. "Who did it? Draco?"  
  
"I doubt it," Tuyet said tightly, "Because boys aren't allowed in our dormitory. There's a spell that stops them."  
  
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, and then Ariane asked what she'd been dying to know since Pansy brought it up: "What did you say?"  
  
Tuyet glared at her with her almond-shaped blue eyes. "Don't you think I've learned my lesson?" she snarled, and stepped inside the Potions classroom with an indignant swish of robes. 


	5. Memories not Mine

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_  
  
**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter Five: Memories not Mine**  
  
"You are now in N.E.W.T. Potions, which means that you are not only very serious about potion making, but also that you received a grade of no less than Outstanding on your O.W.L.s. Though some of you, due to favoritism or sheer good luck, are in my class despite fulfilling neither of those requirements."  
  
The class snickered, Ariane felt herself turning red again. I should be immune to blushing by the end of the year, she grumbled to herself, glancing across at the other unwilling recipient of Snape's sarcasm. It was a dark-haired boy, skinny and short, with round glasses and very green eyes. He wasn't blushing, but instead shot a curious look at her. Ariane looked down and away, pretending to be searching in her bag for parchment. His eyes reminded her of Laramy Ferrer's, only they were more green than blue.  
  
"Settle down," Snape growled, waving his wand at the board. A list of ingredients and some notes on the potion materialized in practical handwriting on the board. "I'll be assigning partners to work on this potion, a fairly simple Invisibility salve. It requires a light hand," he said idly as he watched to see which people were silently partnering up so that he would be able to split them apart. Ariane made an effort not to look at Tuyet, though she suspected Snape had already split them up mentally.  
  
He wound his way through the classroom, partnering a few people who looked relieved, splitting up the dark-haired boy and a pretty brunette by partnering the girl with Tuyet. As Ariane's friend gathered up her bag and books to move across the room, she whispered, "We'll see what Nott thinks about this—I'm partnering Granger the Beaver." Her blue eyes twinkled ironically. Ariane looked at the girl again, but failed to see any marked resemblance to a beaver among the girl's even features, though her thick hair might be considered a pelt if one was really groping for insults.  
  
"Somerled and Potter," Snape said in a grimly happy voice, cutting through her search for beaveresque features on Hermione's face. "I'll put the misfits together where I can watch them, shall I?" He pointed at a table in the very front row, dead center. Ariane swung her bag over her shoulder and took the right-hand seat at the table, and shortly after was joined by the boy.  
  
"Hullo," he said in a tone that defied her to make the best of their situation. "I didn't catch your name."  
  
"Ariane Somerled," she replied, busying herself with her bag. "What's yours?"  
  
"Harry Potter."  
  
"Nice to meet you," she said distractedly, finding a quill that wasn't bent. I'm going to end up needing a new quill every day at this rate. How on earth do people keep their things in order in these blasted bags? She was halfway through copying the notes from the board when she realized that Harry was staring at her. "Is there something you want?" she asked a little rudely.  
  
Harry didn't look away. "Don't you know who I am?"  
  
Ariane raised her eyebrows and glanced at him. "I've only been at Hogwarts a few days, I haven't had time to memorize all the faces yet. I'm not going to take notes for both of us, you know." This Harry obviously thought a lot of himself if he thought a girl only two days into Hogwarts would already know him. Ariane made a mental note to get Snape for this (though she had no solid idea of how) and focused on her notes.  
  
He sputtered, silenced himself, and dug out some parchment. Harry was about halfway done with his when Ariane finished. "Do you know the date?" she asked him. Her quill slipped from her fingers and she had to dive under their desk to retrieve it.  
  
"Er...September 5th, 1996," Harry replied.  
  
She whacked her head against the bottom of the desk as she was getting up. "Ouch!" she hissed, rubbing what would probably become a lump. The pain was nothing compared to her shock. She'd been locked in a tomb for over a thousand years! Boy, she thought giddily, Salazar, you need some serious work on your necromancy. The time lag is terrible.  
  
"If you haven't finished the notes by now, you're obviously lagging," Snape drawled as he walked past their table. "Begin work on the potion now." Ariane glanced at Harry, who had just finished his, and then looked up at the board to see what they would need first.  
  
"All right," she said into the awkward silence between them. "We need some Graphorn horn."  
  
"Got it," Harry said. "And the Demiguise hair is here. The instructions say we need to trim off the split ends." He gave her hopeful look as he held out the hank of silvery hair, probably wishing to be free of such a tedious task.  
  
Ariane didn't mind—while she was doing something easy but irritating he would have to assemble the rest of the potion. She took the hair and a very sharp knife and began going through it strand by strand, cutting off the forked ends. It was absorbing work that allowed her to sit and think of nothing, and the class passed by very quickly. In fact, she was so absorbed in her work that she didn't notice another memory unfurling its dream-wings in the back of her mind.  
  
_She was surrounded by chaos in a curious room that had tiers like a Roman amphitheater. Bright lights were streaking everywhere, people were running by, screaming and shouting spell-words and making furious wand gestures at each other. She was holding a boy around the shoulders (he seemed to be unable to walk due to a hex) and trying to heave him to the uppermost tier of the room.  
  
"Come on!" she shouted above the noise, a desperate edge to her voice. "Just try and push with your legs—" Ariane pushed hard again the boy and his robes ripped down the side, sending a glass ball flying. His foot kicked it and it smashed on the next tier down and a ghost rose from it and started talking. Nobody could have heard it, for the noise in the room was so loud. It floated and mouthed silenced words, and then vanished. Ariane watched it in horror. The prophecy—for that was what the glass ball had been—was lost.  
  
"Harry, I'b sorry!" the other boy cried through a broken, bloody nose.  
  
_Ariane started and accidentally pricked herself with the knife. The sharp pain in her finger dulled the shock of the memory. She peered sideways at Harry, who was absorbed in counting hellebore leaves into the bubbling potion, aware that somehow his memory had just gotten inside her head. That's it. I'm going mad, she thought, and returned to the hairs, sucking on her finger. She would just have to forget this memory before the madness took root in her head.  
  
She returned to the common room after her double History of Magic Class, which, despite the teacher's droning voice, riveted her. So many things had happened since she'd last seen the sun! Ariane rested her head against one of the many serpentine pillars, letting the cool marble sooth her aching head.  
  
"Ariane."  
  
Her purple eyes flicked to the other side of the room, where Draco stood with his hands casually in his pockets. It wasn't quite fair of him to look so perfectly handsome standing there, especially when he was clearly off-limits. Ariane managed a smile. "Hello there," she said in what she hoped was a normal voice—it was hard to act normal when it felt as though her brain was being forced through a strainer. He walked towards her purposefully; a few strands of blonde hair fell across his eyes; and Ariane realized in an instant that the common room was very, very empty. "Where is everyone?"  
  
"Classes," he said simply, and paused a few feet from her and looked her up and down with a gaze that scorched. "You're really not that bad looking, you know."  
  
Ariane was taken aback by this forwardness, and stuttered, "Thank you—I think. You're not really bad looking either," she blurted, and then dug a hand into her curls to hide her irritation. She wasn't sure if she was irritated about what he'd said or irritated by the way he made her insides twist when he looked right into her eyes. Either way, she was blushing again, and he saw it and grinned. Abruptly she was fixated—his smile was perfect—mesmerized by the way it changed his face from threatening and cold to almost human.  
  
"You blush a lot," he observed, moving closer.  
  
"You smile very little," she returned, putting a hand on her red cheek. He was getting far too close, especially for a boy who Pansy Parkinson had claimed for herself. One of his hands passed her peripheral vision and then he was standing with a hand on either side of her head and his face was so close to hers that she could see very light freckles on the bridge of his aristocratic nose. He had short, pale eyelashes.  
  
And then he kissed her, and Ariane got lost, for the second time that day, in a memory that was not her own.  
  
"And Harry Potter gets the Snitch!"  
  
_She was furious, furious with herself for being on this stupid Quidditch team, furious with her father for insisting that she be on the team in the first place, furious that she had had to buy her way on to the team and ashamed that everyone knew it. As she watched the Snitch's silver wings beating on Potter's hand, she knew that she would like nothing more than to smash her broom in half over her knee and pound that Golden Snitch into Harry Potter's smug, smiling face.  
_  
Draco moved away, watching her closely as though expecting some sort of a reaction. She licked her lips and smiled shakily. "Should you have done that?" she asked tentatively. Her mind was roiling with Draco's memory and had not noticed the kiss at all. Ariane wondered if Draco was half so good a kisser as Laramy, then chased the thought from her head. She should never, ever know whether he was a good kisser or not.  
  
"You seemed to like it," he replied. "What's wrong with it?"  
  
"I thought that you and Pansy—"  
  
Draco cut her off. "Pansy has ideas," he explained in a bored voice. "She thinks we're going to be married or something. Really, she's not half as pretty as you."  
  
"There are other things besides being pretty," Ariane pointed out. "For all you know I'm a horrible person." Draco shrugged as if to say so what? "I just don't think it's a great idea for you to kiss me."  
  
Draco simply smiled, tucked his wayward hair behind his ear, and sauntered away in a confident fashion that made Ariane want to wring his neck or kiss him back—she wasn't sure which. What she did know was that she had to keep this from Pansy by all means necessary. Ariane fled to her dormitory in a swirl of robes and silver hair, her head aching worse than ever.

_Author's Note: I love my reviewers so much, you guys are great. I got all your reviews during finals at school and it just made my day. This author's note is bigger than the others because I got reviews and questions and I wanted to answer them.  
  
-I'm sixteen right now, but I wrote Girl From the Past when I was eleven. So there's a very large gap in the writing style, because I like to think that I'm a little more prolific at sixteen than at eleven._

_ -Italics (except in my notes g) denote thoughts, dreams, and memories that Ariane is experiencing. I think that it's pretty clear in the story but it's always nice to put down in words.  
  
__ -I don't exactly hate Gryffindors. I love Ron, Fred, and George (who doesn't love them), but I've always been kind of attracted to the way people behave—and I know why (or I can guess) why the twins and Ron act the way they do. The Slytherins—they've always been a sort of mystery—and they're not always wholesome, nice people. Nice people are great, but they're usually less interesting than the sneering Slytherins that have been waltzing through my story. Since the story is kind of a pro-Slytherin story (or at least mostly told from their points of view) Gryffindors are shown in a negative light, whereas in the actual books Slytherins are shown as evil and nasty because Gryffindors are the main characters.  
  
-The Counting Crows ROCK. That is all that needs to be said. The quote at the beginning of the story is from the song 'Mrs. Potter's Lullaby' and is from their CD This Desert Life. I heard it in my friend's car while I was working on the first couple of chapters of Ariane's story, but I didn't have a title yet. And the song played, and I yelled 'that's it!' and I kind of freaked my friend out, but it's all good now because I have a title. Serendipity, I tell you.  
  
-Raquel_


	6. Alone Without Her Thoughts

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_  
  
**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter 6: Alone Without her Thoughts**  
  
Once she gained the peace and quiet of the empty dormitory, she vaulted to her favorite spot on the window ledge and watched the water make shifting patterns of light on her knees, for once more preoccupied by her present time than by her memories. Tuyet's tale about her missing tongue echoed in her ears, followed by grim speculations about which part of her body would be missing after Pansy was done.  
  
To Ariane's surprise, it didn't feel like a new experience, hiding a kiss from someone.  
  
_Laramy smiled at her, then kissed her hand lightly, his lips brushing delicately over her palm and making every nerve in her body tingle. The rough stones of a wall brushed the back of her dress, which she had chosen that morning very carefully. It was the delicate blue of a summer sky, and it made her eyes stand out in a very attractive fashion, or so she thought. Laramy was wearing green; his red hair was loose on his shoulders, and he looked very handsome against the stony corner that they stood in. The inside corner of the outer wall hid them from sight at she returned the kiss on his lips, closing her eyes for a moment, and then opening them.  
  
"Will you marry me, Ariane?" he asked. Laramy had asked more than once before, when they were still playmates and not a girl and her suitor, and he had smiled each time in a teasing way. Now he wasn't smiling, but the look in his eyes betrayed hope and nervousness and fear all at once.  
  
"I'd love to," she whispered. "Nothing could make me happier."  
  
They kissed again, and Laramy picked her up and twirled her around in glee. His sea-green eyes were smiling happily, and they were both laughing.  
  
Hiss-shuck! Once again, the arrow was protruding from her chest, and the world spun and twirled. Her laughter choked off like a fist had closed on her throat.  
_  
Her head jerked involuntarily, bumping against the window. "God," she mumbled, borrowing a phrase from her new classmates' vocabularies. "When will my mind stop surprising me?" She made herself look back at her thoughts, at the arrow and Laramy, and tried to determine if there had been a gap between the two events. As far as she could tell, however, she had been shot almost directly after Laramy had proposed. There was no way to be sure, except for the Pensieve.  
  
The Pensieve that was in Snape's office.  
  
Only her obsession with her own death could have made her make the journey through the cold stone passageways, despite her fear of Draco and Pansy and her dread of the man who knew more about her than she did herself. It was a short trip, made shorter by her preoccupation with her new knowledge—she had been practically betrothed at her moment of death.  
  
Snape's classroom was empty, but it still bore a stink of hellebore from the Invisibility Salve her Potions class had constructed that day. She paused at the office door and rapped tentatively. Ariane listened nervously for a moment then pushed open the door before she could lose her nerve. The room was empty; the Pensieve sat on the desk. It was exactly as she remembered, a shallow stone bowl with etchings all around the rim. For a moment she traced them with a shaking finger, wondering what she would see if she touched the swirling silver mist inside, the mist formed from bits and pieces of sixteen years of her life.  
  
Tentatively she shook the bowl as though she were panning for gold, and blinked in surprise as a rough copy of the Great Hall she'd ate breakfast in that morning formed before her eyes. It was emptier and a good deal smaller than it was now, but the dais was the same. Ariane's eyes rounded as she recognized herself seated on the dais with twelve other people. They were Godric, Helga, Rowena, Salazar, Laramy, the blacksmith's son, and six other students, each bearing some sort of ribbon or sash that indicated their primary teacher. Ariane herself wore no sash, but Laramy wore blue and the blacksmith's son red.  
  
Ariane leaned in to listen to the conversation taking place.  
  
_"This cannot go on!" Godric shouted, pounding his fist on the table with a force that made the other diners grab frantically for tipping wine goblets and tilting plates. "This is the third time this month that that bloody IDIOT of a Muggle has tried to drive us out. I say we should be rid of all of them once and for all."  
  
The others nodded, replacing their dishes on the table with the ease of long practice. Rowena replied, "Godric, we cannot get rid of them. We buy food from them; we trade services. They are not expendable." She was slender, with a heart-shaped face and brown eyes that looked far too big for their sockets. Taking another sip of her wine, she added, "We can always arrange for Ulrich to have an accident. We've done that before."  
  
"Rowena, dear," the other woman interjected, "Ulrich is related by blood or marriage to half the people in the town. They will be very suspicious if he falls from his horse." The students watched their teachers silently, knowing better than to burst in on what could possibly be a very entertaining conversation.  
  
"Or if a tree falls on him," Godric said humorously. The blacksmith's son looked a little hopeful at this—Ulrich had put his father in the stocks a few months before for witchcraft, even though his father couldn't muster a Hiccupping Hex if he tried.  
  
"Remember that old ninny who was 'kidnapped by mermaids'?" Rowena asked, smiling into her goblet.  
  
"What if we have him try to fly off a cliff and fail?" Salazar said sarcastically around a piece of meat. "Admit it, the only way to get this moron out of the picture is to kill him outright." He was rarely in a good mood at mealtimes.  
  
"Are you volunteering, Salazar?" Rowena asked, raising her thin eyebrows.  
  
"Much as I would enjoy it, no. I think Helga would just jump at the prospect, don't you?" Salazar shot a sideways look at Helga, who raised her eyebrows. He shrugged and went back to his food, brushing aside his shaggy hair.  
  
Helga cleared her throat and refilled her wine goblet with a long, elegant white hand. Ariane fancied that the head of Hufflepuff House had beautiful in her younger years, but as she grew older her hair grew from fiery red to sandy gray-auburn, her perfect alabaster skin became spotted with freckles and lined with wrinkles. Her eyes remained the same, big and shifting pools that ranged from an angry green to calm blue.  
  
Salazar glanced at Godric. "You know, you could always challenge him to a duel of honor," he suggested. "He'd have to accept."  
  
"Yes," Godric said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. He was blonde and fair, with light blue eyes and a nose that had been broken several times, including once by Salazar and twice by Rowena (though both times she had were accidental). "But what if he wins?"  
  
Rowena choked on her drink. "Whom are you trying to fool, Gryffindor?" she asked, shaking her brown hair back over her shoulders. She had let it down from its usual restricted style for dinner, but now fussed with it until all her companions anticipated her putting it up again. "There isn't anyone within fifty miles that's half so good with a sword as you."  
  
"There isn't a sword within fifty miles of this place besides the one hanging from Godric's belt this very instant," Salazar pointed out, gesturing with his leg of lamb. "The best Ulrich could pull off is a sharp rock on the end of a short stick."  
  
"And I, being a man of honor, would have to use a weapon of similar caliber," Godric said, frowning.  
  
Rowena shrugged. "Get a sharper rock and a stouter stick," she said dismissively, refilling her wine glass and Helga's as well. "And make sure it is he who challenges you. That way we will be blameless."  
  
"Less than blameless," Helga said. "But I think we'll all be silver as Ariane before Ulrich decides to challenge Godric." She smiled kindly at her pupil, who blushed. Rowena raised her hand, but Helga cut off her sentence before it had begun. "Nobody would dare go against Rowena, for fear she'll turn them into a tree."  
  
"I only did that once," Rowena said crossly, drinking deeply from her goblet and lowering her heavy eyelids aggressively. "And I meant to turn the bastard into a squirrel." Suddenly she looked very thoughtful and began to gaze into the distance as she pondered her idea.  
  
Salazar started to refill his glass again, thought better of it, and took another serving of lamb. "I'm not so awesome and almighty with weapons myself, but I think that if Ulrich offended our dear Lady Helga in some way I could muster a decent defense of her honor."  
  
Rowena smiled, her round eyes creasing as they focused once more on the present time. "I will be your second. You'll not lose."  
_  
Ariane leaned back from the Pensieve with a small smile on her face. Her heart had remembered, even if her mind had not—she loved all these people dearly. Ariane tapped her fingers on her chin and tried to remember if Salazar had ever challenged Ulrich, and to her delight she could recall that not only had he not challenged him, but Ulrich had gone mad and begun baying at the moon and burying walnuts in the town square. She was too excited to stand still, so instead she skipped on the spot, humming her happiness in a little tune.  
  
For a brief moment, she loved her memory better than anything in the world. Then she remembered why she had come to the cold dungeons in the first place and sobered. Ariane didn't know how to direct the Pensieve to the memories she wanted to see, but instinct took over and she gripped the sides.  
  
"When I died," she whispered, and automatically her mind filled with 'hiss- shuck' and faces looking down and the arrow's feathers waving in front of her face as she staggered. The liquid light swirled without being touched, moving continuously until it cleared on a close-up view of Ariane's left eye, which was rolling uncontrollably. Ariane jumped back from the Pensieve in surprise, but then steeled herself and clamped her hands black onto the rim. "I want to see back a little, maybe to about two or three minutes before I was shot."  
  
The silver mist swelled and then faded, showing a girl and boy standing very close together against the wall, hands touching. Once more the angle was very bad, but Ariane discovered that if she leaned forward and tilted her head she could watch herself and Laramy talking quite easily. She bent forward even more so that she could hear the words. A long curl of her hair, worn loose as Ariane always had it, swung forward and hit the silver mist, blending instantaneously with the sparkling thoughts.  
  
The world tilted and her body slid into the Pensieve.  
  
Ariane hit the ground lightly, as though she had been set there by a giant hand, and for a moment she was confused: she could not see Laramy, and he ought to be right next to her. Someone giggled behind her and she turned to see herself being proposed to. She moved very fast and stood right next to herself, watching Laramy hungrily, absorbing every nuance of his lovely pockmarked face. He was beautiful and real, taller than she was, and his hands were under her arms and swinging her around and they were both laughing. Ariane felt her stomach twist—she knew what was coming. Laramy put the memory-Ariane down on the ground and, with a silly grin, dropped to his knees and kissed her hand.  
  
The arrow hissed by Ariane's head and hit her memory-self with a sick noise like a knife plunged into raw meat. Ariane watched herself stagger, the brown feathers that flighted the arrow swaying, and then the girl's knees crumpled and she topped sideways to the ground in front of Laramy, who had not yet recovered from his kneel. "Ariane!" he cried, still clutching her hand in his though her dead weight dragged him to a crouch.  
  
Helga came bounding over at his cry, her long red hair sending water droplets all over the place. "Fetch a healer!" she called to no one in particular. "This is beyond my skill to heal," she muttered to herself, her hands feeling the placement of the arrow. Laramy was dead white, his eyes tortured.  
  
The real Ariane stared fixedly at herself, lying in the grass with thick red blood staining her blue dress rusty brown. The injured Ariane was gasping, her face turning first white, then gaining a bluish tint until her lips turned a sick violet. "I can't breathe," she whispered. The Ariane standing unseen nearby began to feel slightly ill.  
  
Helga's eyes snapped up to the blonde man bounding across the grounds. "Godric!" she screamed, a note of panic in her voice now. "Godric, help!"  
  
Someone raced by the real Ariane to knee by her dying self: Rowena, her face twisted with a helpless fear that made Ariane's heart hurt. Rowena had always like to be in control; had always known what to do. Even now, when the situation was beyond her control, Rowena grasped desperately for some idea of what she had to do. She rummaged in her ink-flecked robes and came up with nothing but a few spare quills, her wand, and a leather bookmark that was Rowena's favorite shade of blue. Rowena threw the quills at the wall in frustration, and then sunk into herself hopelessly. Ariane wanted to put a hand on her teacher's slumped shoulders and reassure her that it would all turn out all right in the end.  
  
Godric appeared with a startled-looking man clutching a healer's case clutched in his big hands. The older male Founder looked like a lion that had attacked while sleeping. The healer went a little pale when he saw Ariane lying in the grass with an arrow protruding from her chest—he probably specialized in childbirth and the occasional broken bone. He recovered and addressed the small crowd calmly: "We've got to get the arrow out or she'll suffocate." He knelt down, pulled Rowena and Helga aside, and in a low voice explained what must be done.  
  
Ariane moved closer to them, momentarily ignoring her own death on the grass. "—there's very little hope," the Healer was saying. "The arrow must have penetrated many vital organs, and it has broken too many bones in her chest for it ever to heal properly."  
  
"I will do everything in my power to keep this girl alive," Rowena said, her heavy-lidded eyes determined and angry.  
  
"As will I," Helga added. "We are powerful witches."  
  
The Healer, who was a fairly talented wizard himself, shrugged. "Even the most powerful witch cannot stop Death's coming."  
  
"Death hasn't come for her!" Salazar said in a low voice from just behind Ariane. She whirled to face him and saw him looking wildly disheveled and confused. He was behind her dying body, where Ariane, Laramy, and Godric couldn't see him.  
  
"Here Ariane. Bite down on this," Rowena shoved her blue bookmark between the prone girl's teeth. Salazar rushed over, bumping Laramy aside in his haste to clasp her hands as a reassurance against the pain.  
  
"On three," the Healer said, placing his hands firmly on the arrow. "One, two—" And the Healer pulled it out with a wrench that made everyone within sight wince, and the injured Ariane screamed so horribly that the real Ariane clapped her hands over her ears to keep the marrow-freezing sound out. Blood spurted from the wound, soaking the carefully chosen blue dress.  
  
Rowena leaned in and tried to cover the wound with her hands, face set. "Get something to staunch the bleeding!" she commanded. Without a word, Helga removed her black shawl—which was made of the finest wool imported from Italy and had been a marriage gift—folded it up, and pressed it against the now-gaping wound.  
  
Ariane was in shock, standing on the outskirts of her death with her hands pressed over her mouth. She only half-heard Salazar tell the prone Ariane who had shot her, instead running from the scene. Without any instructions, Ariane was trapped in this memory, doomed to watch her own death over and over again. Her eyes were dry, but she could feel her unreal limbs shaking, and the world was beginning to sway. She was going to faint if this didn't stop soon.  
  
As if the Pensieve had heard her, the scene twisted. She was standing near her body once more, and the arrow was still protruding from her chest—from this angle she could tell that the arrow had pierced her lung and possibly her heart. Ariane realized after a few moments that she was not alone in watching. Dumbledore stood with her, his hand on her shoulder. "Ariane, why did you want to watch this?"  
  
She shrugged as Rowena fished frantically through her pockets. "This is the last thing I remember. Everything ends here."  
  
Dumbledore watched as the Healer held a private conference with the two female Founders. "Do you think that the archer meant to hit you?"  
  
Ariane glanced up at him, surprised. "I thought it was an accident," she said, "I thought that it was a hunter's arrow gone astray."  
  
The silver eyebrows arched; the withered old lips pursed in thought. "A hunter of animals? Or a hunter of humans?"  
  
"Animals, naturally. We're too far north to have to worry about assassins," Ariane was a little disconcerted by these questions. "Are you suggesting someone was trying to kill me?"  
  
"They may have been trying to hurt your brother by killing you. When we first met you told me that your brother loved you very much."  
  
"He does," Ariane said, flatly refusing to use the past tense in describing him. She glanced at him, his dark hair falling over his violet eyes, and hoped that her death hadn't been a strike at him. Dumbledore's argument made sense to a point—she was the only one Salazar had ever loved. He had married a lovely woman barely a year before, but he treated her as a lady and not a loved one. Ariane couldn't recall her name. "But—sir." She waved a hand at her brother. "Salazar doesn't have any dire enemies."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Honestly. I would have known if he had."  
  
They watched in silence as Laramy bent and kissed her on the forehead, his skin pale with fright. The dying Ariane smiled at him with her bloodless lips. With a snarl Salazar pushed him away, his sorrow turning into rage. "Never touch her," he warned, eyes glinting in the way that had frightened Ariane. "I'm the one who looks after her."  
  
The scene faded into the swirling silver mist.  
  
"Is that it?" Ariane nearly shouted. "I need to see more!" Dumbledore grabbed her arm and pulled her up through the mist until they reappeared in Snape's office. She yanked away from him as soon as her feet had settled on the floor. "You stopped it, didn't you?"  
  
Dumbledore didn't look at all perturbed by her behavior. "As a matter of fact, I did. I thought you'd seen quite enough for one night. You look dreadful if I may say so." Self-consciously Ariane smoothed her mussed curls, her stomach roiling with anger. "Do you have any enemies, Ariane?"  
  
She looked at him as though he were as mad as Ulrich, the villager Rowena had driven to insanity. "Me? Sir, I'm sixteen. That's hardly old enough to be collecting enemies."  
  
He shrugged again and prodded the Pensieve with his wand. A figure rose out of it, rotating with its feet still in the bowl—Salazar. "If you tell me that you have no enemies, and that your brother had no enemies, then the only option remains is that the assassin missed his real target."  
  
"But there wasn't an assassin!" Ariane threw her arms up in disgust. "It was a hunter's arrow gone astray."  
  
"I took the time to observe your surroundings while you were watching those involved. You're inside school grounds, inside the main wall, where a huntsman outside would have found it very difficult to hit you. And if you didn't notice, it was barely even springtime, and no animals would have been worth hunting yet. There wouldn't have been a hunter nearby."  
  
"There could have been," she clung to her story, though she was aware of the gaping holes in it. She banged her fist down on the table, making ripples in the silver thoughts. "Whom would he have been shooting at?" There was a testy silence, then the Pensieve threw a shape from its depths, a boy with long hair and a long nose and eyes the color of the sea. Ariane pressed her hand over her scar, shook her head.  
  
"He was with you at the time. The only one with you."  
  
"I have to go," Ariane told him, and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her and leaving the Headmaster alone with her thoughts.

_Author's Note: Now that was confusing. But anyway--don't stop reviewing! I love reviews (but will continue posting without them...it's just that I post faster with them)._


	7. Daphne Greengrass

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_

**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter Seven: Daphne Greengrass  
**  
The dormitory was full when Ariane returned. Daphne was lying on her stomach on the floor, painting her nails pale pink with a tiny bottle and brush. Pansy was sitting in bed reading the back of a bottle of some sort of beauty potion, and Tuyet was perched on her trunk with a hairbrush in hand. Her hair was still in a dusty snarl from her Quidditch practice that afternoon. Only Millicent was nowhere to be seen, which meant she couldn't be in the dorm. Millicent was too large to hide.  
  
"Hey," Tuyet greeted her, trying to pull a hair ribbon out of her knotted hair. "Where have you been?"  
  
"I had to see Snape about my classes," she lied, and vaulted up to the windowsill. "How was Quidditch?" Ariane had not known what Quidditch was until lunchtime that day, when Tuyet and Draco had talked about it for what seemed like hours. It was the first time she had seen them talk without Tuyet holding back every other word.  
  
Tuyet rolled her eyes. "We'd be better if Crabbe and Goyle remembered the plays. I'm not saying they're bad Beaters, because they're really quite good, but they're dumber than rocks."  
  
Daphne stopped painting and blew on her nails. "What position did you get this year?" she asked in between puffs of air.  
  
"Keeper."  
  
Pansy snorted. "If you were the best for that position then Slytherin has fallen on hard times indeed."  
  
"At least I've got something that resembles talent, though if you want to sub for me you're welcome," Tuyet replied acidly. "All the Chasers would zip off at the sight of your face." She waved her hairbrush around and contorted her face into a look of mock-fright. "It's a boggart on a broomstick! It's a hag in Slytherin green! It's—"  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
Daphne caught Ariane's eye and shook her head despairingly at Pansy and Tuyet, who were glaring daggers at one another. Ariane smiled tentatively. "What're you doing?" she asked.  
  
"Painting my nails," the pretty girl replied, examining the pink polish critically. "I could do yours, if you like." Ariane didn't have a mad desire to, but seeing as the only other option was to listen to Pansy and Tuyet snipe at each other it seemed like the better option. She nodded her consent and let Daphne pick out a color, then climbed down to the floor and let the other girl attack her nails with a rough strip called a nail file.  
  
"How do you like Hogwarts so far?" Daphne asked conversationally as she scrubbed away. "What classes are you in?"  
  
"Hogwarts is big," Ariane said with feeling, and Daphne giggled. "I'm taking Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, and History of Magic. Oh, and Defense Against the Dark Arts."  
  
"Wow, that's a lot of classes. I'm in Charms, Divination, Astronomy and Herbology and I'm terrible at Transfiguration," the springy curls that surrounded her face trembled as she sighed. "I accidentally turned my armadillo into a really peculiar-looking turban last year at the big exams and I haven't got a clue how it happened. My examiner seemed to like it, though. He asked if he could keep it." She inspected Ariane's left hand critically before picking up her right. "You've got a lot of calluses. Do you play an instrument?"  
  
"Yes, the flute," the silver-haired girl replied. "How did you guess?"  
  
"I used to have piano lessons," Daphne said, wiggling her fingers as though she were playing a keyboard. "I got pretty good, but I had to stop when I entered Hogwarts. Have you got a flute with you? I'd love to hear you play sometime."  
  
Ariane squinted at her classmate, trying to see if she was joking. Daphne looked a little too simple for anything like Tuyet's subtle sarcasm, and once Ariane looked past her lovely face she could see a very honest, nice person. "I lost mine while I was traveling," Ariane said truthfully, omitting that her method of travel had landed her in a sodden heap on the side of the Hogwarts Lake.  
  
"That's a pity. I couldn't exactly bring a piano in my trunk." They both giggled shyly. "So what classes have you had so far?"  
  
"Potions," Ariane made a face. "Professor Snape doesn't seem to like me."  
  
Daphne picked up the bottle of mauve nail polish and rolled it between her palms. "Why do you say that? He likes Slytherins, as long as we don't do anything really dimwitted." Her fingers handled the tiny brush expertly, painting on a thin coat of a shimmery pink like the inside of a seashell.  
  
"He's partnered me with Harry Potter for the term," Ariane said a little gloomily.  
  
Pansy's head snapped around to look at her. "What? You're partnering Potter in Potions?"  
  
Ariane shrugged. "Yes—he's not bad at it, he's just so shy."  
  
Tuyet paused with her brush halfway through her hair. "Shy? Potter, shy?" She laughed. "I'm surprised he didn't pick a fight with Snape when he split him up from Granger."  
  
"He's known for his big mouth," Pansy agreed, and then tried to look as though she hadn't. "Of course, so are most Gryffindors."  
  
Daphne leaned in conspiratorially. "Do you think he fancies you?" she asked, her grey-blue eyes wide.  
  
Ariane laughed, accidentally smearing her nail polish. Daphne tutted and fixed it with a tap of her wand. "Harry, fancy me? He barely said ten words to me the whole class!"  
  
Tuyet waggled her eyebrows and vaulted to Millicent's bed, which was closer to the two sitting on the floor. Her hairbrush was still dangling from her tangled hair. "You've struck him dumb with your beauty," she said in a dramatic voice. "And now he shall only think of how pretty you are and with luck render himself incapable of trashing us when we play him in Quidditch." She struck what was meant to be a yearning, romantic pose, and might have been if the hairbrush hadn't been swinging by her jaw.  
  
Ariane was laughing with the other girls when a horrifying thought reoccurred in her head. _God, Draco fancies me! He said I was pretty in the common room...Pansy'll be furious if she ever finds out. What am I going to do if he kisses me again?_  
  
As it turned out, Draco was almost as careful as she was. He managed to corner her the next morning in the common room after most people had gone to breakfast. This time Ariane was ready for him.  
  
"I really don't think this is a good idea. I'm not popular at all, and you need someone popular to keep up appearances," she blurted when he twirled one of her silver curls around his index finger. Ariane waited for his reply, pleased that she had a rational argument to fend him off with this time. Draco paused for a second, very close to her. He smelled good.  
  
"You're not popular yet," Draco corrected her, tugging at her hair. "As I said, you're pretty. Boys will be following you around by the end of your third week."  
  
"If you say so," Ariane said doubtfully, leaning back against the pillar he had backed her into.  
  
"I'm good at spotting trends," he told her smugly. "Probably the best in the school."  
  
And the most self-centered, Ariane thought with irritation. "I've got to get to breakfast."  
  
"So do I," he agreed, then leaned in and kissed her for the second time since they'd met.  
  
_She crouched in her bedroom, terrified. There were men in the house—many men and a woman with a heart like ice. They had brought other people with them this time and the new people were screaming and screaming until she began to scream as well. Her mother came and picked her up, bounced her a little, and then whispered "Draco, darling, you can stay with me until Daddy's finished his business. How would you like that?" She buried her head into a shoulder that smelled like jasmine and sobbed._  
  
Their lips parted, and Ariane opened her eyes. Draco's gray eyes were barely six inches from hers and he was smirking, but when she looked right into them all she could think of was the little boy crying into his mother's shoulder. Her heart softened despite herself, and she looked away so that she wouldn't be tempted to stare at him all day. He was very good- looking—nothing like Laramy, of course—but she didn't want him to like her. Ariane really didn't want herself to start liking him, though a small part of her was beginning to.  
  
He left for breakfast, leaving her staring at the ground. It wasn't until Tuyet came marching through the stone wall with a cheerful look on her face that Ariane snapped back to life. "Though this display of melancholy is certainly poetic," she said with a grin—an eagle was painted on her cheek in green and silver— "it doesn't look like much fun. Come on, let's go to the match."  
  
The Hufflepuff v. Ravenclaw match was well attended, if not the most fiercely contested match ever played. According to Tuyet—who had a lot to say about this match and almost every match in existence, or so it seemed—the best match of the year was almost always between Gryffindor and Slytherin. "But I won't have to watch it from the stands this year," she said with a smile, watching a player in yellow zip by with the Quaffle in his hand. It didn't seem like a big loss to Ariane, who had a hard time just following the game, let alone playing it.  
  
Ravenclaw won, their Seeker moving so quickly that cheers surrounded Ariane before she knew what was happening. She screamed along with everyone else, feeling silly and elated, and let the mood of the crowd carry her. There was a celebratory party in the Ravenclaw common room that Tuyet, Pansy, and Daphne went to (an action that was very much against the rules), but Ariane chose to meander back down towards the Slytherin dormitories, not caring if she found them or not. Her whole soul felt like it was made of lead, her mood crashed from the Quidditch high to the lowest points of depression.  
  
She shuffled her feet in their modern shoes and thought about Salazar, who had died over nine hundred years ago. Nine hundred years. Ariane couldn't fathom such a long time, let alone image Salazar waiting and waiting for her to wake from her death-sleep. Had he been disappointed? Had he thought that he had failed? She didn't want him to have died thinking that he was a failure; she wanted to talk to him and tell him that he had succeeded, though belatedly.  
  
And what of Rowena? Of Helga, and Godric, and all the students? Had they forgotten her after her death? Ariane froze in the middle of the hallway as a brand-new thought struck her. _Laramy_. Had Laramy married another? Had he pined for her, or had he forgotten what she looked like and married a woman with plain hair who knew nothing of the stars? Her purple eyes filled with tears; her heart roiled with the need to know. What had happened to those she loved? Ariane rubbed her fingers into her stinging eyes, trying to erase Laramy from her inner sight. It wasn't important, she told herself, it couldn't be changed. It was ancient history now.  
  
But she needed to know! Ariane began to pace back and forth in the hallway.  
  
_Ancient history._ Professor Binns had wheezed out something about the library in yesterday's lesson. Apparently Madam Pince was in the process of going through the very old sections of the library and restoring her beloved books. At the time Ariane had dismissed the statement with the vague thought that she might want to look through those old tomes at some point, with a bit of curiosity about whether she'd been put down with the early records of Hogwarts. Now the records might hold another link to her past, something more solid than the handful of memories of her past.  
  
She wasn't sure where the library was located, but hope gave her speed and Hogwarts seemed to understand Ariane's need to find the room, and after ten minutes fast walking she found the library and ran straight into someone as they tried to go through the door at the same time.  
  
"Ouch!" she grunted as their heads collided. Lights popped in her vision, not quite obscuring Harry as he clutched his own forehead.  
  
"Watch where you're going!" he snapped, bending to pick up the books he had dropped. "What're you in such a hurry for?"  
  
Ariane shrugged mulishly and helped him gather up his things. "Just curious about the library."  
  
Harry gave her a strange look. "You're a little too excited about it, if you ask me."  
  
"I didn't," she replied with a polite smile, and rushed into the library before he had time to reply. Tuyet's dramatic proclamation of Harry's undying devotion, though probably untrue, was echoing in her head and making her think odd things. Harry did have nice eyes, she decided after a moment's thought in the privacy of a set of shelves. Not blue-green like Laramy's, but pure green from iris edge to pupil.  
  
Ariane approached the librarian hesitantly. Madam Pince was pinched and tall, with bony hands that dangled off her wrists like the claws of a praying mantis. Her gray hair was pulled into a knot so tight that it lifted the corners of her eyes, which were watery and pale. "Excuse me," she whispered, not wanting to disturb the near-sacred silence in the library. When Madam Pince did not look up from the book cover she was polishing, Ariane cleared her throat as loudly as she dared.  
  
"What do you want, girl?" Madam Pince said, her voice harsh and altogether too loud for the quiet library. She sounded like a wheezing bird of prey.  
  
"Um," Ariane hesitated, and Madam Pince looked up so sharply that she jumped. "Where do you keep the old school records? I mean the really old ones."  
  
"From how many years ago?" Her pale eyes had narrowed as her librarian brain began to flip through its catalogue.  
  
"About nine hundred. Maybe even earlier than that." Ariane wilted a little under the predatory stare. "But only if you have them."  
  
"Dumbledore told me you might ask to see those," she said in her loud voice, drawing the attention of several people nearby. Ariane felt her cheeks going red. "He left it up to my discretion. Let me see your hands!" she barked. Ariane held them out, palm up, and Madam Pince inspected them minutely. "Clean enough," she grumbled, "Come this way."  
  
Ariane followed the thin, hunched back to a set of shelves that held green, leather-bound tomes at least six inches across at the spine. "_Hogwarts, a History_," Ariane read silently from their spines. The next set of shelves was protected by magical glass that glimmered with yellow, red, and blue fires. They were bowed under the weight of reams of parchment, yellowed with age.  
  
"There's the more contemporary accounts, collaborated by reliable sources from about 1250 on," Madam Pince gestured with one claw-like hand at the green books. "And those are records from about 1500 back, which are pretty accurate but also in Old French. I'm not going to sort through them for you. Translation dictionaries are over on the northern side."  
  
"Is—is there any particular order to them?" Ariane gulped, surveying her self-appointed task with dismay. "A beginning?" At least she didn't have to worry about the language barrier: Rowena had insisted that Ariane learn to read French as well as English, and since she had learned the French a thousand years before it stood to reason that it was now considered 'old'.  
  
"The ones that look really old—they are really old. Just go by that if you need any help. Most are dated, but they aren't in any chronological order or anything. If I took the time to do that the library would fall down around my ears." She stalked off, leaving the silver-haired girl alone with a thousand years of history on as many shelves.  
  
Hesitantly Ariane reached out and took the first volume of _Hogwarts, A History_, flipped it open, and began to peruse the contents. Since each volume weighed more or less twenty pounds, she then sought out a window seat and piled the first three volumes on it and started reading. About fifteen minutes into the second volume, she got into the 1400's, well past when everyone at her Hogwarts would have been dead and decaying. Laramy wasn't mentioned, but to Ariane's surprise she was, on page 157: '_The reason for Salazar Slytherin's defection from the school has been debated, though it was almost certainly because he disliked the growing influence of Muggle-borns and half-breed wizards in Hogwarts, but it must be noted that he left soon after the death of his sister, Ariane._'

Ariane raised her eyebrows in disbelief at this minor mentioning, though it didn't surprise her after some more reading. The authors of Hogwarts, a History seemed to concentrate on the three Founders who had remained at Hogwarts until their deaths. Salazar's section was less than half as thick as Rowena's and little more than a quarter of Godric's.  
  
She closed the book, and leaned back to ease the knot in her spine. Then she yelped and nearly fell out of her seat as she noticed the boy who had been standing next to her.  
  
"Shh!" Draco said with a snicker as she used his shoulder to regain her balance. "Madam Pince'll put you in detention for shouting in the library."  
  
"How long have you been standing there?" Ariane demanded, lowering herself to the ground and pushing her fringe out of her eyes. "Haven't you got anything better to do?" She stopped before she said something that would get her tongue hexed off.  
  
"I'm always open to suggestion. What're you doing?" He peered at the books, then at the shelves of old records. "Looks boring."  
  
"It's all right," Ariane replied, stuffing the volumes back onto their shelves and taking a pile of records off the shelves that looked sufficiently old and dilapidated. When she turned, Draco was still watching her. "Were you wanting anything?" she asked, annoyed. She immediately regretted her choice of words as he smiled slowly and raked her from head to foot with his pale eyes and smiled very slowly.  
  
"You want to go for a walk?" he asked. When she blanched, he amended hastily: "Not to go off and do _things_ like you're thinking. Just to talk."  
  
_Right. Why do I get the feeling that he'll be doing most of the talking?_ Ariane wondered. "We shouldn't be seen together."  
  
"Come on. If it's Pansy you're worried about, she's still at that Ravenclaw party with Tuyet." He smiled winningly at her, and, unwillingly, Ariane felt her mouth curving up at the sides in reply. "Let's go, just dump that dusty parchment there."  
  
Ariane put it back on its shelf, making a mental note to get back to this pile later. They left the library together, Draco casual like always, Ariane with her hands stuffed in her pockets and shoulders rigid. On her way out she saw Harry watching them over his Potions text, but he looked back down at it when he saw her see him.  
  
"So what are you reading up on ancient Hogwarts for?" Draco asked conversationally.  
  
Ariane shrugged, buying time until she thought up a suitable lie. "I was researching my family," she replied after a pause. It was true, to a point.  
  
"Your family goes back to the Middle Ages?" he said with something close to respect in his voice. "That's impressive. Are you all pureblood?"  
  
"I think so," Ariane said with a frown. She was fairly certain that her mother was a witch, but since she didn't know her father she could easily be half-breed. "We're probably not the purest family there is, though," she smiled up at him. "How far back does your family go?"  
  
"Oh, forever," he said with a gusty sigh. "It's an object of pride for my family to hold up like a shield." He ran a hand over his white-blonde hair to hide his irritation.  
  
"You don't value your birth?" she asked with shock in her voice. "Birth is everything!" Draco snorted. Ariane continued her argument silently: _I was born a peasant. No one could tell you better than I that a good birth is everything._ "Do you not like your family?"  
  
"I like them," he told her, "but they expect me to marry a pureblood and there really aren't any left. It's becoming a hot issue at home."  
  
"There must be a few," Ariane said as they turned a corner. "They can't all have died out."  
  
"No, but we're so inbred that the only English purebloods I can marry are first cousins," he replied with a wry grin. "And they're exceptionally ugly."  
  
Ariane rolled her eyes. "Do you think of nothing but what people look like?" she asked impatiently. "Sometimes people who are lovely to look at have the personalities of trolls." She blinked and looked down at the ground, silently berating herself for losing control of her tongue.  
  
Draco laughed. It was a strange noise that didn't look like it should have popped from his mouth. "Sometimes people who are lovely to look at are much more fun than trolls."  
  
"Thank you," Ariane replied, suddenly feeling very giggly. "For your gallant complement." Somehow she kept hold of her urge to titter like a little girl.  
  
"'Twas nothing," he said, with a short bow and a smile.  
  
After a few more steps Ariane began their conversation again. "So why were you in the library?"  
  
"I was looking for you."  
  
"Was that all?"  
  
"I can't think of a better reason to venture into the library on a Saturday evening," Draco said with a grimace. "That Madam Pince is scary."  
  
Ariane nodded in agreement. "She's very loud for a librarian," she observed as they passed a suit of armor that was rocking suspiciously. "She enforces quiet at the top of her lungs."  
  
"In my experience the loudest people in the world are librarians," Draco told her gravely, brushing his white-blonde hair out of his eyes. "Doesn't Madam Pince resemble a vulture, though? A really skinny one?"  
  
She laughed aloud. "That's exactly what she looks like!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to think of that every time I see her now." Draco tilted his head and studied her as they turned towards the fifth floor. It was still light enough in the halls that she could tell that he was raking her with his eyes again. She stopped walking, and he stopped in front of her. "What is it?"  
  
He shrugged. "I've never seen you laugh before." Draco leaned forward until his nose was an inch away from Ariane's. "It's very fetching."  
  
"Oh," she breathed. There wasn't anything to say, so Ariane half-hoped that he would kiss her because she didn't have the nerve to kiss him. After a few moments suspended like this, they continued walking in some silent agreement, but this time their hands met mid-stride and stayed entwined.  
  
They continued to meander through the dimly lit hallways; peeking looks at each other while pretending that nothing had changed between them. Ariane watched him through her eyelashes, admiring the aristocratic set of his face and his icy coloring as they ascended a flight of stairs. Then, abruptly, she fell through the stair. A shriek of surprise tore from her mouth as she sank up to her knees in solid stone. Draco grabbed her under the arms and lifted her easily out of the false stair, putting her on the step above it with a laugh. "You've got to watch out for the staircases. They play tricks."  
  
Ariane leaned forward and propped her arms against his shoulders so that their faces were an inch apart once more. "Are the staircases the only things that play tricks?" she asked coyly. This wasn't a time for thought, this was a time of night and shadows and staircases. Ariane was vaguely aware of the rest of the world floating outside; her whole mind focused on Draco's fingers running through her hair. Her scalp crackled with the electricity of his touch.  
  
"I dunno," he whispered. "Some of the girls here are pretty tricky as well." She leaned down to meet his kiss.  
  
_"What do you mean, 'it was an accident'?" Snape roared. "You could have permanently damaged her, you could have killed her, and if it hadn't come back you could have been expelled."  
  
Ariane watched from around the door as a thirteen year-old Pansy took the berating wordlessly. Snape was stalking up and down his office, looking royally displeased—but also rather proud, though he was hiding it.  
  
"I'd prefer it if you left punishments up to teachers in the future, Miss Parkinson."  
  
"Don't worry, Professor," Pansy said in limpid tones. "I won't let my temper get the better of me next time."  
  
Snape sighed. "A week's worth of detentions, and let it be a warning to be cautious." Pansy nodded, looking appropriately remorseful and downtrodden. "Get out of my sight." She bobbed her head and exited though the door Ariane stood by, simpering as she walked past.  
  
She fell into step with Pansy and asked "A week's worth of detentions from Snape! What did you do?"  
_  
A low female voice and a pair of very strong hands interrupted their kiss. "Honestly, do you lot think this is a brothel?" Ariane twisted, still a little disconcerted by Draco's memory, to see a tall, thin woman with a lot of wavy bronze-colored hair standing on the stairs above them. She was pale and had an abundance of freckles, and her green eyes seemed to be constantly half-closed due to the long pale eyelashes that drooped from her heavy eyelids. "Both of you get to your common room. I shan't accompany you, I have better things to do than rein in hormones." She brushed past them on the stairs, neatly skipping the trick step.  
  
"Who was that?" Ariane asked once the woman was safely out of earshot. "Was that a teacher?"  
  
"Professor Connor," Draco replied, disgust weighing down his words. "She teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts."  
  
Ariane realized with a pang of embarrassment that she would be seeing Professor Connor on Wednesdays for a double period of N.E.W.T. Defense Against the Dark Arts. She vowed to do all she could to hide in that class. If she had to face Professor Connor again, she feared that she'd burst into flames in embarrassment. "You don't like her much, then?"  
  
"She's a werewolf," he said darkly as they began descending the stairs. Ariane nearly tumbled down the stairs in shock. A _werewolf_! In Hogwarts! Was Dumbledore mad? Draco steadied her as they made their way back down the stairs. When Ariane raised quizzical eyebrows at him, he elaborated. "It's against the law for her to hold a job here, but Dumbledore insisted that she was the only suitable candidate. The Ministry was forced to make an exception."  
  
"She doesn't look like a werewolf," Ariane whispered, half to herself.  
  
"They usually don't," he replied wryly. They walked in silence for a few more minutes, alone with their thoughts.  
  
Ariane was thinking over the memory that was fresh in her head—a memory that wasn't hers. She was fairly certain it belong to Draco, and was at a complete loss as to why it had ended up with her. She supposed it could have rubbed off on her while they were kissing, but she had never heard of such a thing happening. What was she to do with thoughts that did not belong to her? Give them back? Ariane rubbed her forehead and wondered if she was going quietly mad. Should she tell Snape or Dumbledore? Maybe—and this made her worry a bit—all Salazar's necromancy had addled her brain and she wasn't fit to remain among the honest living, those who still have their original lives with no raising of the dead involved.  
  
Suddenly Draco stopped walking. Voices were coming their way, along with the faint glow of wand lights. Ariane glanced at him nervously, but then she stood silently, listening to the discussion going on around the corner.  
  
_Author's Note: Not much of a cliffhanger, but I thought it best to end it there because the next chapter's pretty packed. Please review, it takes about 10 seconds and brightens my day. _


	8. Sooty Yeti

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_  
  
**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter 8: Sooty Yeti  
**  
"—haven't seen either of them all night! Surely one of them would have been at the party!"  
  
"She hasn't been here two full days, she wouldn't have gone. And Draco's never fancied the parties."  
  
"He went with me last year!" Ariane frowned. The two girls were Pansy and Tuyet, and Pansy was very much upset.  
  
Tuyet sighed in exasperation. "Pansy, he only went because you half- dragged him there. He doesn't like parties when he's not the center of attention."  
  
Ariane glanced up at Draco and saw that his jaw was clenched. She made a mental note to warn Tuyet about him before she got her tongue hexed off again.  
  
"B-but I haven't seen him all afternoon!" Pansy half-wailed. Ariane decided that she must have had something to eat or drink that didn't agree with her, because it was totally out of character for Pansy to whimper, especially to Tuyet. "He's hardly talked to me since _she_ got here."  
  
_No prizes for who_ she _is_, Ariane grumbled to herself. Tuyet wasn't the only one who was going to have to watch her back in the dormitory tonight.  
  
"You'd better run for it," Draco breathed into her ear, "I've got to make it up with Pansy." He didn't have to tell her twice. Ariane crept off; trying to suppress the feeling that tonight was the last time she'd be able to enjoy Draco's company without Pansy breathing down their necks. Not to mention the thorn in her side that was Draco making up to Pansy right as Ariane fled down the hallway. It reminded her of the time they had been staying at the manor and Madam Hufflepuff, Helga's mother, had caught Helga's father in bed with the blacksmith's wife. To her intense shame, Ariane realized that she was playing the part of the blacksmith's wife.  
  
She wasn't altogether familiar with the ways of her new world, but she would have bet money that she would never be Draco's 'girl' out in the open. They would keep their conversations and kisses secret—though if there were more people like Professor Connor in the school, it would get out eventually—and sooner or later Draco would lose interest and move on to another pretty girl. Daphne, perhaps.  
  
A tiny shred of rebelliousness flared in Ariane's brain. She was Ariane Somerled, and she was born free and had better things to do than be a popular boy's plaything. She had come to like thinking that she was pretty, and she had also begun to think that she might be able to get another boy to fancy her once Draco had moved on. Maybe that Harry Potter—he wasn't bad looking, even if he was a little short—and Tuyet had said that he might fancy her.  
  
Just outside the Slytherin Common Room, a shard of memory struck her like lightning.  
  
_Laramy._  
  
Ariane clapped a hand to her forehead so hard that she staggered. How could she have forgotten?  
  
_Laramy's dead_, said the new part of her that liked kissing Draco so much. _He's nothing but dust, and you ought to forget him._  
  
_I was engaged to him!_ snapped her old self, _I can't just brush him away like he never mattered._  
  
_He might have forgotten you. Probably married some brown-eyed girl with lots of freckles who knew how to milk cows and raise babies.  
_  
If it wouldn't have looked totally insane, Ariane would have stuck her fingers in her ears so that she wouldn't have to listen to her own inner argument. Instead she whispered 'Slatero' and went inside the common room. She would have given anything to be able to close off her mind from the thoughts now shooting through her brain.  
  
Blaise ran into her almost immediately, his eyes crossed and his curly hair on end. "Hello, beautiful," he said, looking at her with a yearning expression almost as bad as Tuyet's had been, "My heart has missed your lovely lips, your moonlit mane, your—"  
  
Daphne threw a pillow at him from her seat on the floor. "Ignore him," she said, rolling her eyes. "He's just been hit with a Confundus Charm." She patted the ground next to her invitingly, but all Ariane wanted to do was collapse onto her lovely bed and sleep away her second day at Hogwarts.  
  
"I've got to get to bed," she demurred, pushing Blaise away from her knees, which he was eyeing queasily.  
  
Once she gained the safety of the dormitory, she pulled on the pajamas set at the end of her bed and vaulted onto her windowsill and looked out. The waters of the lake looked the same as they always did, if a little darker than usual because night had fallen. Ariane was watching the purples and blues and green swim lazily, her eyelids drooping, when sudden the dormitory door slammed open. She yelped and toppled off the windowsill, but was saved the trouble of getting to her feet when Tuyet dragged her up by the collar.  
  
"What's wrong with you?" she asked at the top of her lungs, using her free hand to point her wand at the door. It shut and locked itself. "I saw you two together when I was leaving the Ravenclaw party, up there kissing on the stairs! Ariane, I warned you about him, Pansy threatened you about him, and I'll be damned if you didn't go sneaking off with him the first chance you got!" Tuyet let go of Ariane's collar and pushed her so that she sat heavily on the bed. "Look, I'm telling you this because I really don't want to see you get shredded by the end of your first week. You should stay away from anything Malfoy if you want to grow old."  
  
Ariane blinked up at the red-faced Tuyet, who was usually so cool and cutting, and said, "I'm sorry."  
  
"Sorry isn't worth a rat's ass," she snapped, but when Ariane looked away, hurt, Tuyet sighed and sat down next to her. "Look, I know that he's got to be one of the most handsome boys at Hogwarts, but his family is up to no good. His dad was in Azkaban over the summer for breaking into the Ministry of Magic with a bunch of You-Know-Who's Death Eaters."  
  
Ariane added all of these things to her mental list of words to look up and topics to ask Snape or Dumbledore about. "That's pretty serious, then," she replied hesitantly.  
  
"Pretty serious, yeah," Tuyet said. "Look, my mum works at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as a Hit Witch, and she's not exactly a pansy." Ariane made an approving noise and made her mental list longer. "But she told me that there are only three wizards that she'd never want to face in open combat: You-Know-Who, Sirius Black, and Lucius Malfoy."  
  
"He's not a very nice person then?" she asked quietly. Draco's horrifying memory of his father's friends torturing someone echoed in her mind. "He kills people?"  
  
"Muggles, mostly, but he nearly did for a couple of Aurors in that scrape at the Ministry last summer," Tuyet replied with grudging respect in her voice, "Aurors are a step up from Mum as far as toughness and smarts go."  
  
"They must be very clever," Ariane said politely, and Tuyet glowed.  
  
"I want to be an Auror," Tuyet said dreamily, flopping backwards onto Ariane's bed. "Mum got shut out mostly because she's foreign, but I've got a fighting chance and I think I'll be able to do it."  
  
"You don't look foreign." Now that her friend was no longer telling her off, Ariane began to organize her mental list. As soon as Tuyet went off to sleep she was going to write it all down so that she wouldn't forget. She knew that they had Sundays off, and she planned to spend her free day in the library and picking Snape's brain.  
  
"Dad's British, but Mum's from Vietnam originally. I kept Mum's surname because 'Tuyet Smith' sounds ridiculous." Tuyet sat up sharply. "You've gone and got us off topic!" Ariane shrugged and hid a smile. "Listen, don't let Malfoy push you around just because you're new here and shy as all hell. Be polite but say no."  
  
"No to what?" Ariane asked curiously. No to his kisses? It was a bit late for that. She had already begun forming her plot to get out of those, though.  
  
Tuyet went pink. "Look, I know you're really naïve about a lot of things, but surely you know about sex. I don't think he's ever gone and done it, but he seems to really fancy you."  
  
Ariane shrugged and aired her thoughts aloud. "I figured that eventually he'd get bored and move on."  
  
"If this was a normal person we were talking about, that would be the way to go, but he can be very persistent." Tuyet gave her a doubtful look through her blonde fringe.  
  
"Then I'll be very polite and very elusive," said Ariane simply, taking a comb off her night table and running it through her curls. Tuyet looked as though she'd like to argue, but then Daphne came in, her hair mussed and her face dewy with sweat.  
  
"Blaise," she sighed in deep disgust. "I couldn't just leave him lying in the middle of the common room, so I dragged him upstairs. The oaf nearly knocked me out."  
  
"Maybe he'd have learned not to insult Ravenclaws if you had left him there," Tuyet pointed out. "It would be a memorable lesson if he woke up drooling on Millicent's shoes."  
  
Daphne shrugged and went faintly pink in the cheeks. "It gave me an excuse to go into the boy's room. Draco looks good without his shirt on."  
  
Ariane giggled and Tuyet threw a pillow, and before long they were all flinging pillows at each other and shrieking with laughter. Millicent came in about five minutes after the fight began and was hit full in the face with somebody's sweater—Ariane held her breath—but took it in good humor and threw it back so hard that it knocked Daphne off her bed. The pillow fight was in full swing when Pansy came bursting into the room, her face red.  
  
"Somerled, where were you?" she demanded and pointed her wand directly at Ariane, a ferocious look in her small brown eyes.  
  
Ariane smiled placidly and realized that her wand was still in her school bag. "The library. I was researching my family." And she flung a pillow at Pansy's head with all her might.  
  
It was quite fascinating, watching Pansy's feet flying up in the air, and then hearing the hollow thump as her plump bottom hit the green carpeting. "You b—" she started to shriek, but two more pillows cut off whatever she'd meant to say. "If you lot—ouch!—don't cut it out right now—ow—I'll give the lot of you detentions!"  
  
"Prefect Pansy's pissed!" Tuyet taunted, and flung another pillow at her.  
  
It hit Pansy squarely in the stomach, and she howled, pointed her wand at Tuyet's head, and cried "_Petrificus Totalus_!" Tuyet ducked, but it missed her by inches. Nobody was laughing now, and Daphne jumped behind her bed to protect herself. After a moment's hesitation, Ariane copied her example. Millicent was trying to hide behind a pillow, which was about as effective as trying to hide Hogwarts behind a napkin.  
  
Pansy and Tuyet squared off, Tuyet standing on her bed in her mussed school robes, Pansy kneeling on the floor quite red in the face and surrounded by pillows. "_Expelliarmus_!" Pansy shrieked, but once again Tuyet ducked, though her wand was nearly knocked from her grasp.  
  
"_Impedimenta_!" Tuyet yelled, and Pansy was thrown backwards into Daphne's school chest.  
  
"Stop!" Daphne told them, but they ignored her. "Stop it!"  
  
Tuyet shouted something that Ariane didn't catch, and Pansy began to sprout a lot of black fur from her face and arms, giving her the look of some sort of longhaired dog or badger in a girl's clothes. She shrieked in fury and tried to get up, but Tuyet's Impediment Jinx was still working. Pansy snapped out her wand arm from her seated position, the thick fur swaying as it continued to grow. "_Conjunctiva_!" The blonde haired Slytherin dropped her wand and screamed, clutching the eye that Pansy's curse had hit.  
  
Terrified, Ariane grabbed her school bag and rummaged around for her wand—how stupid could she be, to just leave it somewhere when she might have needed it—finally grabbed it, and yelled "_Finite Incantatum_!" to the room at large. Tuyet stopped screaming and Pansy got to her feet, just as Snape burst through the door with murder glinting in his eyes. Ariane noted with relief that Pansy's pelt had stopped growing, though it still hung there like a foot-long curtain from her arms and head.  
  
"What," he said in a voice that made Ariane want to disappear, "Do you all think you are doing?" She hid her wand beneath her bed sheets. Snape's black gaze took it all in: Pansy's hairy state, Tuyet's bloodshot eye that was already beginning to swell closed, and the three other girls in the dormitory who had taken cover. He stared each of them down. "Who started this?"  
  
"She hexed me!" Tuyet pointed at Pansy, one of her hands going to her eye.  
  
"She got me with a Hair-Growth Charm first!" Pansy defended herself, though it was very obvious to anyone with eyes. She looked like a sooty Yeti. "And she was flinging things at me!"  
  
"We were all flinging things," Ariane contributed hesitantly, not trusting her voice to remain free of the laughter she was suppressing. "It was all in good fun."  
  
"All in good fun," Snape echoed disgustedly.  
  
"All's fun and games until somebody loses an eye," Tuyet grumbled under her breath. "Pansy, you really need to grow a sense of humor to go with your pelt."  
  
"I was fine until she knocked me down!" Pansy pointed at Ariane. "She's got it out for me, Professor."  
  
Ariane barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "I haven't got it out for you," she said, somehow keeping her exasperation from showing through to her voice. "I didn't mean to throw it so hard." Blatant lie, she thought, crossing her fingers mentally, and if I got another chance, I would have thrown it harder, I think. But only if it would have sent Pansy howling to Snape right away instead of trying to curse Tuyet's eyes out.  
  
"I expected better of you," he snarled, looking a lot like a vampire for a moment, "If anything of the sort happens again, you'll be disemboweling mandrakes until graduation. Do I make myself clear?" Ariane couldn't meet his eyes, but she nodded. Pansy simply looked defiant (though it was very hard to tell her expression through the fur), and Tuyet was too busy glaring at Pansy with her good eye to do anything. "Get to the hospital wing, both of you."  
  
"Isn't she going to get a detention?" Pansy asked in a scandalized voice, pointing at Ariane once more with her hairy arm.  
  
"No," Snape said in a voice that dried up all their complaints. "Go to the hospital wing, Miss Parkinson, Miss Qui-Minh."  
  
Pansy left in a huff of black hair, Tuyet trailing after, and Snape glared at them all. "Clean this up," he said in a disgusted voice, and slammed the door behind him.  
  
Ariane stood up and looked at the dormitory, retrieved her pillows, and climbed back onto her bed. Daphne copied her, her pretty face screwed up. "I hate it when they fight like that," she said softly.  
  
"Do they do this often?"  
  
"At least once a term for the past three years," Daphne sighed. "Last year was really bad, though. Pansy ended up with _antlers_." She shook her head, springy curls trembling. "It's really hard to be friends with both of them."  
  
"I can imagine," said Ariane sympathetically. "You must be pretty diplomatic to deal with both of them at once."  
  
Daphne laughed a little sadly. "I just duck when it gets bad." She hopped into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. "They'll be at each other's throats for the next couple of days. Tuyet needs to watch out."  
  
"She did okay for herself in here," Ariane said fairly, jumping onto her own bed.  
  
"She's quick, but her spells never work as well as Pansy's," the other girl replied ominously, and closed up her curtains. "Good night."  
  
"'Night," Ariane told her, drawing her curtains around her and groping under the sheets for her wand. "_Lumos_!" she ordered it, and by its light found quill and ink and a spare bit of parchment. She began to make out her list of things to ask Snape about, once she got the chance and the courage to face him after her disgrace earlier.  
  
_The Ministry of Magic  
  
You-Know-Who  
  
Death Eaters  
  
Sirius Black  
  
Lucius Malfoy  
  
Aurors  
  
Hit Witches  
  
Azkaban_  
  
She thought for a moment, chewing on the end of the quill, then added:  
  
_My father_  
  
Her dreams that night were memories that she had forgotten.  
  
_"Make sure this rinses all through your hair," Salazar whispered urgently. "We need to stay as unobtrusive as possible." He moved off, leaving Ariane staring into a bowl that reeked, filled to the brim with black walnut stain. It was thick and dark and would turn her hair as black as her brother's. Ariane fingered her curls, which at ten were waist-length.  
  
"Salazar!" she called. "Can I not cover my hair?" Ariane knew that she couldn't bring herself to dye it, anymore than she could pluck her own eyes from her head.  
  
"It's far too recognizable!" he said impatiently, throwing clothes into a trunk. "Lady Hufflepuff only agreed to take us along if we could blend in." Salazar came up beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder, underneath her silver hair. "It will fade with time," he reassured her.  
  
"You do it," she said tightly, closing her arms over her chest. "I cannot."  
  
Gently he gripped her shoulders and turned her about so that her back was to the bowl. With the grave air of a preacher dipping a sinner into the baptismal pool, he lowered her down until she felt the dye lapping at her scalp. A lone tear of vanity trickled from her eye as she dried her black hair and tucked every strand of it into a kerchief until nothing showed.  
_  
Ariane sat up in bed. "What a stupid memory," she whispered to herself. _Was I ever so vain? But did I fear losing my hair or my identity—that is the question._ She punched her pillow and lay back down, violet eyes wide in the darkness, waiting to sleep again. When sleep evaded her for a half- hour, however, she got up, pulled her black winter cloak on over her pajamas, and went down to the common room to pace.  
  
The fire in the long fireplace was low, merely glowing embers. Ariane sought out a poker and prodded the coals, her body remembering how to coax a flame from the fragile cinders. As she crouched, her face warmed by her chore, she thought of another time and another hearth.  
  
_She was fifteen or so—almost a woman—and she was wearing her Hogwarts clothing, gray skirts, white kirtle, black bodice. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, bright in the firelight of the kitchen hearth. A poker was gripped loosely in her right hand; her left steadied her as she crouched by the flames.  
  
"You shouldn't be here," she told Laramy, who was leaning against the door. "You should be in Rowena's house at this early hour."  
  
"What you mean is that you don't want Salazar to wake and see me talking to you," Laramy said, cutting through her excuses as he always did. "Is he your jailer?"  
  
"No!" she replied, shocked at this assessment. "What on earth would make you think such a thing?"  
  
He screwed up his face in mock-concentration, pushing his coppery hair behind his shoulders. "Hmm...because he gets angry when you spend time with anyone but him...because he only lets you spend time with other women when he isn't monopolizing your time...and possibly because he half-killed the last person who dared to ask for your hand in marriage."  
  
Ariane turned around so quickly that she nearly set her skirts on fire. "What?"  
  
"Didn't you hear about that? The headman from the village down the hill petitioned for you." Laramy studied her expression intently, and then grinned. "Don't worry, I think your brother dissuaded most suitors from that village. I doubt the headman's rid himself of the hooves yet."  
  
"Isn't he a Muggle?" Ariane asked, aghast. "I couldn't marry one of them!"  
  
"Muggles aren't so bad. This one wanted a witch for a wife. Very practical man, if you garner my opinions."  
  
Ariane made an indignant noise and went back to the fire. "Muggles killed my mother," she told him. "I couldn't share my house with one."  
  
"That's your personal life and opinion. But then again, since Salazar's choosing your husband, why wait? Tell him so that he knows what to look for." Laramy chuckled, his mood lightening hers.  
  
"Why even take that much effort," Ariane returned with a laugh. "I should just marry you. You're a clever wizard, you're not too old nor too young, and you're Rowena's favorite student."  
  
"I wouldn't dare marry you," Laramy joked, "For fear that my new brother-in- law would organize my untimely demise and leave you a widow before we were married a fortnight." Ariane brushed the weak jest aside, ignoring the way it chilled her bones.  
  
"Why—" Ariane froze halfway through the word as the door separating the kitchen from the rest of the house swung open. "Hello Salazar," she said pleasantly.  
  
"Why are you up so early?" he asked, his long dark hair sleep-mussed. "And what were you doing in here?"  
  
"Talking to myself," she said airily, resisting the urge to see where Laramy had hidden himself. "I'll stop if it's bothering you."  
  
Salazar looked a bit confused, but shook his head and went back through the door. "You can keep talking if you like, but do it quietly," he replied over his shoulder. The door swung closed.  
  
"Laramy?" she whispered once a decent amount of time had passed. "Where—God!" For Laramy had just dropped out of the thatched ceiling onto the kitchen table and was grinning from ear to ear.  
  
_She blinked hazily at the embers in the Slytherin common room, her brain caught between her future and her past. Why had she been so afraid of Laramy's joke about Salazar organizing his untimely demise? Was it because she had already begun to like him, or was it because it seemed like something Salazar was capable of? As she went back upstairs to her dormitory, she tried to puzzle out her worries. Would Salazar kill someone for her? _Maybe if that person was trying to hurt me,_ Ariane reasoned, _but not if he was marrying me_._ Salazar would be picky about my husband, that much is true, but if he went to all the effort of finding a suitable wizard he wouldn't kill him right away. That would be a waste of effort. _Her reasoning had holes, however, and the perfectionist in Ariane wasn't satisfied by her argument. After a brief hesitation, Ariane added it to her list of thing to ask Snape about.  
  
After all, Ariane reasoned, was there any other useful thing about having another person who knew all her memories? Perhaps he could see things in them that she couldn't—or wouldn't.  
  
_Author's Note: Nothing much to say, other than thanks for review (even if it takes longer than I think it does, lol). Oh, and even if Draco is hot, he is still scum, and I promise that there won't be any more unjustified angst over him...I've gone on._ _And also sorry about the chapter title...I was going to upload it when I realized that I'd forgotten to title it...and due to a mental clog I couldn't think up anything better._


	9. Queen of Spades

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_  
  
**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter 9: Queen of Spades**  
  
Ariane was the first one in the library the next morning, though it wasn't for personal research this time. She had looked at her schedule and realized that first thing Mondays she had double Potions (again!) with Snape. The essay he had assigned on Friday was due then, and Ariane hadn't so much as looked at it since Friday. Admittedly she had been distracted, but she still needed to get it turned in. It wouldn't do to start her year without an assignment.  
  
A few hours later she was deeply immersed in her book, 'I Haven't Got A Body (a Quest for Invisibility)', when someone sat down right across from her. For a moment she considered not looking up, but then her curiosity got the better of her. Peeking over the top of her book, she saw Harry, a red-haired boy she didn't recognize, and Hermione Granger taking seats across from her.  
  
"Do you mind? Everywhere else is full," Harry asked. Ariane shook her head and moved her papers off their side of the table; Hermione smiled politely, Ariane waved back amiably, and they sat with their books in silence for a half-hour before any of them talked.  
  
The red-haired boy was trying to read a very old text on Transfiguration, but was stumbling over the Latin that the author had used to describe the Transfiguration. He had pulled out an immense Latin-English dictionary to aid him, but he seemed to have no familiarity with Latin at all. Finally he slammed the dictionary shut and growled "_Squamosusa_? What the bloody hell does that mean?" He shoved the book off the table, and Madam Pince glowered at them.  
  
"Scaly," Ariane said automatically, forgetting that she had no idea who he was. She lowered her book and saw that Harry, Hermione, and the red-haired boy were all staring at her. A familiar heat rose in her cheeks. "Sorry," she apologized, bringing her book up again. "Didn't mean to butt in."  
  
"You read Latin?" Hermione asked curiously. Ariane nodded shyly over 'I Haven't Got A Body'. "That's fascinating! Where did you learn?"  
  
"My—my mother, I suppose. She was my first teacher." Ariane apologized silently to Rowena, who had in reality been her first teacher. "I haven't done any in ages though."  
  
The red-haired boy showed her another line of Latin in the musty old book. "What's that say?" he demanded, a little rudely.  
  
"The serpent should now have a skin made of paper-thin gold," Ariane read without hesitation.  
  
He frowned. "Well then all this is wrong," he mumbled, tracing a slightly disheartened finger down his page of sloppy notes. "I've mistranslated something, because I've got down that 'the gold should have turned into some sort of newspaper' and 'the snake ought to be up your pants'."  
  
Harry laughed, Hermione rolled her eyes at the ceiling, and Ariane squinted at the book. "Well, it's not a very good dictionary you're using," she told him. "But couldn't you ask your Latin teacher or something?"  
  
"We don't have a Latin class here," Harry told her. "Oh, I forgot. Hermione, this is Ariane. She's in our Potions class." Hermione and Harry exchanged a look that Ariane hoped had a lot to do with the class and nothing at all to do with her. "Ron, this is Ariane Somerled."  
  
"Hi," she said, and Ron nodded in a distracted sort of way, crossing out most of his Transfiguration worksheet. She had just found her place in her book when an ominous silence fell over their section of the table. With a creeping feeling of dread, Ariane pushed her fringe out of her eyes and looked behind her.  
  
"My office, five minutes," Snape snarled at her. He turned in a swirl of black robes and unwashed hair.  
  
"God," Ariane muttered, slamming the book closed. Ron was staring at her with his mouth slightly open. "Is there something you'd like before I go to my death?" she asked, too irritated to be polite.  
  
"I have never seen Snape look that angry with a Slytherin," he told her solemnly.  
  
"I have," she replied gloomily, "See you all in class." Ariane swung her bag over her shoulder and tramped off, quite miserable, certain that she was in for another lecture of magnificent proportions.  
  
The sight she saw upon entering Snape's office wasn't promising: he was stalking around behind his desk and nearly upset the Pensive when she came in. He looked as though he had not slept well, and his normally lank hair was mussed. "Am I in trouble?" Ariane asked before he could say anything, eager to get her bearings in this situation.  
  
"Despite your display last night, no," Snape told her, an ironic note in his voice. He stopped pacing, braced both hands on his desk, and peered at her intently. She met his stare, reminding herself that she had very little left to hide from this man. "I have been asked to council you on your findings in the Pensieve."  
  
"Actually," Ariane drew in a breath, praying for the nerve to go on, "I was hoping you could help me with some things about the present day, if you don't mind." She pulled her list from her pocket and handed it to him. Snape looked at it and his eyebrows plunged down to make a single line over his black eyes.  
  
"Why are you asking me about Death Eaters and the Dark Lord?" he asked her.  
  
"Because I do not know who they are, and people who mention them expect me to understand," Ariane replied, baffled. She had thought that her reasons were obvious.  
  
Snape chuckled bitterly. "I mean, why are you asking _me_?"  
  
"I can't ask anyone else, except Dumbledore." Ariane was very confused now. Snape was not reacting as she had expected, in fact he was behaving distinctly oddly. A fragile silence stretched as Snape seemed to gather his words, his surly face paler than the girl had every seen. Ariane waited nervously, shifting from foot to foot, one of her hands tangled in her curls.  
  
"You can't know why it is such a big thing to ask," he said after a few minutes, drumming his fingers on his desk. "But the fact is that there is a wizard alive now that is so feared that nobody refers to him by his name. He has killed many people, Muggles and wizards alike, and he is a direct descendant of your brother, Salazar Slytherin."  
  
"What is his name?" Ariane pressed.  
  
"You'll usually hear him called 'You-Know-Who' or 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be- Named'. Sometimes he's even called 'The Dark Lord'." Snape took a deep breath, his sallow face very pale. "His real name is Voldemort." He looked as though saying this name had cost him a lot of energy, and remained silent for a full thirty seconds before continuing. "The Dark Lord considers Muggles, Muggle-borns, and half-blood wizards to be inferior, and his goal is to rid the world of them so that the purebloods will not be hampered by them." Snape met her eyes, expression unreadable. "He does this to fulfill Salazar Slytherin's mission to destroy Muggles."  
  
Ariane flushed with anger. "You mean to say that this idiot believes that he is doing what my brother wanted? Do you think that my brother wanted to kill all Muggles?"  
  
"Most people think that was your brother's idea. The Dark Lord certainly has helped enhance that view, but many pureblood families have always considered themselves superior to Muggle-born witches and wizards."  
  
"That's the biggest load of horse shit I've ever heard in my life!" Ariane exploded. "Not only is that a ridiculous thing to think, it's a total corruption of what Salazar believed!"  
  
"You'll often find that in the course of history, what is true is not always popular." Snape smiled grimly at her rage. "There's a saying I'm fond of: 'God cannot change the past, but historians can'. You'll find that the beginning of Hogwarts is blurred beyond what you'd know."  
  
"Do you really think that my brother would have encouraged the killing of innocent people?" she raged, "Salazar never would have considered—what's the word—wiping out an entire race of people!"  
  
"Genocide," Snape offered calmly.  
  
"Yes, that," Ariane said, her anger boiling behind her cheekbones. "How would that even be connected to him?"  
  
"You forget that he became a very different person after you died. Would the Salazar you remember have left Hogwarts or fought with Godric Gryffindor?"  
  
She paused, the heat falling away from her face. "No," she said after a long silence. "I suppose he was terribly angry with the hunters who killed me, and if they were Muggles..." she trailed off. Snape was giving her an almost pitying look, which was quite as alarming as his usual sneer. "What?"  
  
"Don't you realize that there's no way Muggle hunters could have shot you?" Snape asked bluntly. "You and your friend were inside school grounds, right smack up against the wall." He stalked over to his desk and pulled out a sheet of parchment and ink. "Look," he told her, "you two were in the northeastern corner, because Hogwarts is built like this"—he inked a square—"and the forest is down here, in the west and southwest"—he drew a bumpy shape to represent the trees—"and the flat plains come to the walls on the north and northeast sides, leaving no cover for nearly a mile. In the south, there's the lake, which was a huge quarry when you knew it." His sallow, bony hands sketched the dimensions of the quarry and wrote 'LAKE' over it.  
  
Ariane blinked at the swiftly assembled map, bewildered by the hard logic of it all. "How do you know all these things?" she whispered.  
  
"The Pensieve," he replied, looking pained. "I've been through the memories quite a lot." She remembered how he had looked after reading all her memories, as though someone had tried to take off his head with a blunt axe, and felt a little sorry that he had to bear her whole life on top of his own. Not that she'd willingly deposited all her memories in his head, but no matter.  
  
She licked her dry lips nervously. "So—who do you think did it?"  
  
His face was hidden behind a curtain of greasy black hair, but his tone closed their conversation. "I suggest that you research that on your own time, Somerled."  
  
Ariane frowned but let him usher her out the door, solidifying her opinion that this man was the most irritating human being in the universe. One moment he was practically guiding her towards her murderer, the next he had stopped short of the goal and was closing his office door in her face. It was frustrating, and she walked back up to the library in a black mood, congratulating herself for escaping from a lecture but still wary. Did Snape know and just not want to say?  
  
She walked back to her table to finish her essay and found that Madam Pince, being a highly organized person, had returned all her books on Invisibility to their shelves. It would take her at least ten minutes to find them all again. Ariane bit her lip and went to find them, only to discover that they were not on their shelves after all. She barely suppressed a growl of frustration when she couldn't find one of the books that she'd originally based her essay on.  
  
It was only after she returned to her spot that she realized that Harry's things were still there. Perhaps she would be able to borrow his books when he returned. She spent a boring five minutes correcting the beginning of her essay. Ariane was halfway through looking up the proper spelling for 'Abyssinian' when she became aware of someone looking at her. She glanced up and found Madam Pince peering at her essay.  
  
"There's two 's's," she said briskly. "I was going through some very old files and I found these. I thought that you might find them interesting." To Ariane's bewilderment Madam Pince extended a pack of tattered playing cards bound together with a piece of string. "I've got duplicates of all of them on file, so you can hold onto these for awhile. Don't get them wet, don't tear them, and don't you dare lose them." Ariane nodded dumbly and accepted the cards, which felt like rectangles of paper-thin metal from all the Strengthening Spells cast upon them. "Good luck with your essay." She stalked away, and Draco's description of a starving vulture floated to the top of Ariane's mind.  
  
Wondering why Madam Pince would give her playing cards, Ariane undid the string and spread them across the table. They looked very old and were done on yellowed parchment, but the hand-made paintings remained bright. Each suit was a different color: red, yellow, green, blue. The face cards were painted in a style that made Ariane think of stained-glass windows, each done with meticulous care and bearing a different face.  
  
Ariane blinked hard and peered at the minuscule writing under the Queen of Diamonds, who was done in shades of yellow with coppery hair. The tiny script read HELGA HUFFLEPUFF. She dropped the card in surprise, but quickly retrieved it. Sorting through the other yellow cards revealed that the King of Diamonds was Helga's late husband (his portrait contained more black than any other card) and the Knave was the great badger with black and yellow stripes that made up Hufflepuff House's shield.  
  
Her fingers fumbled through the cards. The King, Queen, and Knave of hearts were Godric Gryffindor, his pretty wife Verity (whom Ariane remembered as honest to a fault and not very popular), and the Gryffindor lion, respectively. Rowena was the Queen of Clubs, but her King card was blankly blue. Ariane smiled a little bitterly, remembering her teacher's disdain for the male sex. She had believed that no man was good enough for her to marry, and had probably died an old maid. Putting aside the Knave of Clubs (an eagle), she reached for the King of Spades, her brother. Salazar was painted in green with a silver crown upon his black hair, and only one of his violet eyes was visible due to the profile view. She put aside her brother, put aside the green and silver snake that was the Knave, and picked up the Queen.  
  
Ariane had half-expected this. Part of her thought that Salazar would conform to whatever the other Founders had done and put his wife on the card, and the other part of her knew that he wouldn't.  
  
She stared at the Queen, who was turned only slightly away from the painter. Her silver hair was loose and took up most of the background with its metallic curls, and the thin circlet that lay on her forehead was made up of braided green cords. The tiny script read 'ARIANE'. Ariane gazed at her own violet-eyed likeness and felt a cold shiver run down her spine. Here was solid proof, apart from her own memories, that she was not lying.  
  
Someone sat down with a clatter of books that startled her and sent her playing cards flying. "Sorry," Harry said, sounding a little distracted. "Let me help you with those."  
  
Ariane crawled about on the floor; trying to round up all the cards and hoping that Madam Pince hadn't seen her ancient deck go flying. She had nearly all of them when she sat back down and began to count them out by suite, praying that she had all fifty-two. Once she'd gotten through the clubs and hearts, she realized that she was still missing most of the spades and quite a few of the hearts.  
  
She looked up and saw that Harry was looking at her in a distinctly odd way. "Where did you get these?" He held out the missing cards with the Salazar and Ariane cards on top.  
  
"Madam Pince," she said warily, taking them from him and shuffling them under the rest of the spades. "She's helping me research my family."  
  
"Oh. Why are you doing that?" Harry asked curiously.  
  
Ariane looked away and tried to think of a reason that was good enough to satisfy him and would kill any other questions. "I'm trying to find relatives," she said, giving her voice a sad tinge, "Because my mother died last year and if I don't find a cousin or something I'll have to go to a home for—for girls who haven't got any parents," she finished lamely, having forgot the word.  
  
"An orphanage," Harry supplied for her. He didn't look as though this had stopped his questions; on the contrary he was looking at her with increased interest. "Be careful which relatives you go to, though. I live with my aunt and uncle, and they're quite horrible."  
  
"Are your parents dead, then?" Ariane asked, her own curiosity getting the better of her.  
  
"Yes," Harry replied. "They died when I was a baby."  
  
"It's too bad that you never got to know them," she said considerately, counting out the cards again and finding that she was still missing the eight of hearts.  
  
Harry nodded, and then said, "Why would you find relatives on a deck of cards? Was your family famous?"  
  
"Sort of—but this is kind of an obscure branch of my family. We've had to go pretty obscure to find any relatives," Ariane said, a plan forming in her head, "So this woman is like my mother's great-great-great aunt's cousin's father's mother or something like that." She fished around in the deck and, chilled by her own nerve, handed him the Queen of Spades. "She might not even be related to me, but we look quite a bit alike so there's no telling."  
  
Harry peered at the card through his round glasses, then up at her. "That's weird. And your names are the same as well."  
  
"Bit weird," Ariane agreed, taking the card back, shuffling the deck together, and binding it up with string. She decided that she'd been reckless enough for that day and changed the subject: "How far have you gotten with Snape's essay?" she asked, tilting her head so that her hair swung behind her shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Draco Malfoy enter the library, see her talking to Harry, and freeze. Ariane quickly looked back at Harry and continued her conversation, leaning forward so that Draco wouldn't be able to overhear. "I'm finding the bit about the dragon scales horribly difficult."  
  
Apparently she was not through with being reckless.  
  
_Author's Note: Gah! This is fun. Next chapter we learn more about the murderer, Professor Connor, and a heliopath named Charly. More fun in Hogwarts..._


	10. Heliopath

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_  
  
**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter 10: Heliopath**  
  
"Please take your seats," Professor Connor said, and everyone sat as quickly as they could. Her reputation as a hard teacher had taken root in the first week of classes and continued to blossom. She had a low, gravely voice and stinging wit that she didn't hesitate to dole out to those who displeased her, and had made it clear in the first class that anyone who had not achieved 'Outstanding' on their O.W.L.s had best clear out of her class because she didn't want to take the time to throw them out. Professor Connor had lost a whole class in that fashion.  
  
Ariane took a seat next to Tuyet in the back, half-hidden behind her text. She didn't want Professor Connor to recall her face, due to the circumstances of their last meeting. The Defense Against the Dark Arts class was without question the largest Ariane had yet attended: thirty students, mostly Gryffindor with a few Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. She and Tuyet were the only Slytherins in this class, and they had raised some eyebrows when they had come in. She could see Harry up front with Hermione and Ron, looking very much at ease despite being within slashing distance of a female werewolf.  
  
That was another thing that bothered Ariane: how could she expect to be safe when a monster was teaching her? She could tell that Professor Connor would be quite a dangerous person even if she weren't changing into a bloodlust-driven wolf at full moons.  
  
The professor pushed her thick bronze-colored ponytail over her shoulder and addressed her class. "Today we'll be learning about a sort of Magical Creature that you lot haven't covered yet—heliopaths. Can anyone tell me what they are?"  
  
Nobody spoke for fear of giving a wrong answer. Hermione Granger, however, was undaunted. "They're people who can control fire in all its aspects," she said, sounding as though she were reciting it from a textbook she had memorized.  
  
"Maniac brainiac," Tuyet muttered under her breath.  
  
"That's right," Professor Connor said, "They are people. Heliopaths are notorious for their bad tempers, red hair, and occasionally spontaneously combusting." A few people grinned at Ron, who looked thoughtful. A round- faced boy with a nose that had been broken at least once shivered. "Because you lot are supposed to be the best and brightest of your year, I expect you'll know that you should always be polite to heliopaths unless you like being burned crisp. If one of you insults Charly and gets fried, then I will not intervene. It's your own damn fault."  
  
"Who's Charly?" a girl with shiny dark hair asked her twin.  
  
"Charly Toril is a friend of mine," Professor Connor answered, blinking her sleepy green eyes at the twins. "She's a heliopath, the only one in England, and she's doing me an enormous favor by parading herself in front of you lot. She's waiting in my office, so compose yourselves and get out some paper. We're taking notes, but don't be obvious about it."  
  
Ariane was wondering how on earth they were supposed to do this when the door to Professor Connor's office swung open and all the torches that lined the room abruptly extinguished themselves. She stifled her gasp with her hand as the room went black, and then she saw movement by the teacher's desk. The torches re-lit with a 'pop'.  
  
Charly Toril was about nineteen years old, short and stocky with chin- length pale red hair that stuck up all around her head. Her skin was slightly pink, as though she were sunburned, and she had bright blue eyes the same color as the middle of a flame. She was dressed in curious Muggle clothes and didn't look at all capable of burning a city to the ground.  
  
With a slight air of drama, she placed a cigarette in her mouth. It lit itself with another 'pop', and several people in the front row jumped.  
  
"'Ello," she drawled with a wicked smile. She looked like a fox that had just raided a henhouse.  
  
A few of the bolder people in the class returned her greeting, and the class proceeded from there.  
  
To be fair, it was an interesting class. Ariane learned a lot about heliopaths, including the reason why Charly was the only one left in England: the Ministry had killed off all the others (a law was in existance that allowed the killing of dangerous or criminal creatures). Charly gave several displays of her skill, including making the ends of her hair glow like sparks in a high wind (she refused to show them what a full combustion looked like on the account that it would ruin her clothes), burning a quill pen to ash while Professor Connor was holding it without scorching her, and for a finale she made all the torches' flames shoot to the ceiling so that the students were enclosed in a dome of fire. It was frightening and wonderful at the same time.  
  
Once Charly had bowed out to applause from the class, Professor Connor took up her stance at the front once more. "Thank you," she told Charly, patting her arm in a companionable way, and then turned to the class, which fell silent almost immediately. "Now that we've actually met a heliopath, we're going to really learn about them. Get ready for some real notes."  
  
Professor Connor began to lecture at a speed that cramped up Ariane's hand and when the class finished just before the bell, the whole class was massaging wrists and flexing sore fingers. Only Hermione Granger had gotten it all down without any difficultly, and most of the Gryffindors were casting envious glances at her neat notes. Tuyet and Ariane compared their notes during lunch and filled in missed spots with a little difficulty.  
  
Draco peered over Ariane's shoulder, standing a little closer than was necessary so she could feel his breath in her hair. "Heliopaths?" he said with surprise.  
  
"Yes, it was a very interesting lesson," she said blandly, not looking up.  
  
"It was cool," Tuyet told him. Her left eye was still quite swollen from where Pansy had hit it with the Conjunctivitis Curse, and it was rimmed with yellow and green bruise shadows that Madam Pomfrey hadn't managed to get out. It made Tuyet's already slanted eye look like a slit.  
  
Draco noticed. "What's wrong with your eye?" he asked, not sounding very concerned at all.  
  
"Oh, I was clumsy," Tuyet said lightly, not meeting Ariane or Draco's eyes. "It'll heal soon enough."  
  
"Why didn't you tell him the truth?" Ariane asked Tuyet as they walked to their afternoon class, double Herbology with the Gryffindors. The sun was already too warm on her silver head, and she shuddered to think how hot it would be inside the greenhouse.  
  
"Because in Slytherin the truth won't set you free, but it'll more than likely give you boils," the blonde grumbled. Ariane didn't want to know what that meant, so she sped up and entered Greenhouse 4 ahead of her friend.  
  
A plant immediately attacked her.  
  
She screamed without meaning to and pushed it away so that it fell to the floor, scattering dirt and shards of pottery everywhere. The boy who had knocked the plant into her apologized, grinning, as the rest of the class sniggered into their dragonhide gloves. Ariane bent to help him pick up the bits of plant (which was leaking an odd purplish sap onto the packed dirt floor) and promptly got her hands pushed away from it by a dirty boot on the end of her professor's foot.  
  
"Gloves, miss...?" reminded a dumpy sort of witch with flyaway hair.  
  
"Somerled. Ariane Somerled," Ariane said, blushing and pulling on her gloves. She ought to know better than to go and touch strange plants without protection. The sandy-haired boy helped her pick up the plant and the remains of the pot, but it was useless to try to revive the broken leaves and stems—the purple sap had all leaked into the dirt, leaving odd reddish stains where it had been.  
  
"Finnegan, if you would please refrain from tipping my best asphodel plant over? All right, class, lets get started."  
  
Professor Sprout didn't mess around with a lot of explanations, simply pairing them up and assigning them each a bed of curious looking plants with tufts of purplish leaves. Ariane squinted at them, and then blinked, her mouth falling open in shock. "Mandrakes," she whispered to Tuyet, whose eyes rounded.  
  
"Yes, Somerled, mandrakes. These are in the embryonic stage and cannot be disturbed or they will die. You're task today is to weed them. Ten points will be taken off your grade for each mandrake disturbed." Professor Sprout tugged her hat further over her ears and began to patrol the class, watching as they began to pull weeds very gently.  
  
Ariane looked at her bed in dismay, then across at the Gryffindor working on the other side. Harry was tugging on his gloves, looking a bit grim. "This is nearly impossible," he told her glumly.  
  
"Don't be so cheerful, you might crack your face," she replied, taking a hold of a plant that wasn't a mandrake and tugging it lightly. It didn't budge. When she pulled harder, however, the nearest mandrake's leaves turned dead, powdery white.  
  
"Ten points gone, then," Professor Sprout said as she strolled past.  
  
It took Ariane about fifty more points to figure out how to get the weeds out without killing her mandrakes. It took a careful combination of gentle pulling and a bit of twisting and wiggling. This weeding was tedious, mind- numbing work and it helped to think of other things while doing it.  
  
As was typical, Ariane was soon lost in a new memory as her hands worked on the weeds.  
  
_"What's that?" she asked Godric as he stood outside the new addition to his House. It didn't seem to be a kitchen or a new living area for Godric and his new wife, Verity. "That new building there."  
  
He chuckled and smiled down at her from his height of six foot four. "That's a stable for the winged horse that I've bought."  
  
Ariane looked up at him, all fear and suspicion of him forgotten in her moment of wonder. "A winged horse?"  
  
"Aethonan," he said proudly, naming the breed. "A mare. Would you like to see her?"  
  
"Yes, please!" she said eagerly.  
  
Godric led her around to the other side of the stable, where a horse stood munching hay peacefully. She was as tall as Ariane in the shoulder and gleaming chestnut from nose to tail, with white socks on her forelegs. Her eyes were brown and soft, and the feathers in her huge wings were a coppery brown that shimmered in the afternoon sun. "Wow," Ariane breathed, reaching out and running a hand over the horse's long nose. "What's her name?"  
  
"Caelestis," Godric said with relish, letting the name ring the way it ought to, since it belonged to such a magnificent creature. "Would you like to ride her?"  
  
Ariane hesitated, wondering what Salazar would say when he realized that his fourteen-year-old sister was wheeling up in the sky beyond anyone's reach, and then nodded. By the time her feet next hit ground, she wouldn't care what Salazar had to say.  
  
Godric picked her up by the waist and lifted her easily onto Caelesitis' back, his hands so large that his fingertips met around her waist. "Should I have a saddle?" Ariane asked hesitantly. She wasn't sure how to act around Godric when they were on friendly terms.  
  
"No, just ride astride and hold onto her mane." She laced her fingers in the horse's chestnut mane and shifted a leg across the wide back, her cheeks pinking when the new seating position pulled her skirts above her knees. Ariane peeked across at Godric, who glanced at the bare leg nearest him for a moment and then back at her face without blinking. "Hold on with your legs," he told her, and led the horse out of the stable.  
  
"What are you doing?" someone yelled from far across the grounds. It was Salazar, and Ariane could tell from this distance that he was furious.  
  
Godric hesitated for a moment, his hand still on Caelestis' lead.  
  
Ariane buried her face and hands in the horse's mane and kicked its sides with her heels as she'd seen Muggle horsemen do. Immediately coppery wings flapped open on either side of her, throwing Godric to the ground, and with a downsweep of fifteen-foot wings Ariane was in the air.  
  
There were no words to describe the flight. It was smooth and fast and oddly quiet. The wind was rushing by her ears and tangling in her hair, and they were soon so far above the ground that even Salazar's roars of protest were left behind them. Caelestis seemed to enjoy this nearly as much as Ariane, and was taking great pleasure in flying higher and doing wide turns and once a tight spiral that left Ariane gasping for breath. Hogwarts had shrunk until it was smaller than a single stone, and the fields around the village of Hogsmeade were a patchwork of gold and green and brown.  
  
It was the most wondrous thing she'd ever done in her life.  
  
After an hour or so, Ariane began to feel the creeping feelings of guilt. Salazar and Godric would be worried, not to mention they'd probably be at each other's throats. She could hear their arguments in her head already:  
  
"Your sister has stolen my horse!"  
  
"Your horse has flown off with my sister!"  
  
Ariane leaned forward on Caelestis' back, meaning to tell her that she wished to go down, but the mare seemed to understand. They began to descend on a slow slope towards the growing blocks that were Hogwarts. It seemed to Ariane, however, that the flying horse was descending too shallowly—they would miss Hogwarts at this rate.  
  
Then Caelestis dived straight down, folding her wings so that coppery feathers surrounded Ariane and she was looking between the chestnut ears at the ground, which was rushing straight at her. Before she could scream, the hooves of the mare hit the ground, and she lurched forward, her face pressed into the coarse hair of Caelestis' mane.  
  
"What were you thinking?" Salazar demanded from her left side, his voice harsh with anger and worry. "You could have died!"  
  
"Not to mention that you can't control that blasted nag if it decides to dive like that," Godric added from her right, all his admiration for the lovely creature gone. "Why did you kick off?"  
  
Ariane looked from one angry face to the other, one dark and stricken with worry, the other fair and frowning disapproval. "I apologize," she said calmly, "I promise that next time I try to fly her I will know what to do." This placated Godric, but Salazar still raged on.  
  
"Next time? What do you mean, next time?" She hesitated, unable to describe the feeling of flight to her brother, feeling her stomach clench with the slightly disturbing knowledge that here was another thing that separated her from her brother, another thing that she could never make him understand.  
  
Like how she felt about Laramy.  
_  
"Potter, where is your mind? That's over eighty points gone!" Professor Sprout's shrill voice snapped Ariane back to Herbology class.  
  
Harry was gazing in a slightly shocked way at the bed of mandrakes in front of him, most of which were white and dead. He looked as though he had just been awakened from sleep. Ariane glanced down at her plants, worried, but most of them were still healthy and purplish.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asked him, for he was as white as his mandrake plants.  
  
"I just had the weirdest dream," he whispered, still appearing shaken. "I was riding a flying horse."  
  
Ariane made herself keep weeding, though her hands had just gone icy. "That seems an odd thing to think about," she said lightly.  
  
"It was really clear though," Harry insisted. "Someone was showing me his new flying horse, and he let me ride it, and—I was in a _skirt_," he finished, looking very puzzled and a bit disgusted at the same time. "Why—" he broke off, and then continued. "It was like a memory, but it never happened to me."  
  
Her hands jerked, and two of her mandrakes went ashy white. It was happening to someone else. Harry had seen her memory, just as she had seen Draco's—and Harry's, now that she thought. _I'm not going mad after all,_ Ariane thought, and then amended, _well, if I am, at least someone else is as mad as me_. Harry looked so distressed that she couldn't let him think that he was going mad. "Harry," she whispered. "Was the horse's name Caelestis?"  
  
His green eyes rounded. "Yes! How did you know?"  
  
Ariane looked down her row and saw Hermione Granger watching them from Harry's right and Daphne leaning a keen ear to Ariane's left. "Is there anywhere I could talk to you where nobody will overhear us?" she asked as quietly as she could. She realized how she sounded after she said it, and bit her lip in irritation. Ariane had no desire for any other male at Hogwarts to get ideas about her.  
  
Harry was concentrating on salvaging his last few mandrakes and didn't notice her phrasing. "The clock tower," he replied after a moment's thought. "There's a flight of stairs that leads up inside the gears and such. Nobody ever goes up there."  
  
"All right," Ariane said slowly. "I'll meet you there at eight."  
  
"Right," Harry said, his forehead furrowed. "And you'll explain...this?" He shot a look at her, and she quickly turned her purple eyes to the ground, hoping that he wouldn't see inside her head again.  
  
Finished with her tray, Ariane pulled off her gloves and stepped away. "I'll try," she promised, still not meeting his eyes.

_Author's Note: Nothing really to clear up in here, so thanks in advance for reviewing._


	11. Truth and Lies

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_  
  
**Films About Ghosts  
  
Chapter 11: Truth and Lies**  
  
Ariane managed to avoid Tuyet and Daphne after dinner. She had gone upstairs and fetched her black winter cloak, and though she probably looked very stupid creeping along in the shadows along the hallway with her hood up and her face hidden, the practical garment hid her distinctive hair. In fact, she was just congratulating herself on getting to the base of the clock tower without anyone noticing when she nearly ran over Draco Malfoy.  
  
"Oh!" she exclaimed, quickly pushing her hood back. "I didn't expect to see you here," she said, when he looked at her oddly.  
  
"Yeah," he said in a silky voice that sent a chill down her spine. "I know."  
  
Tuyet's voice spoke inside her head._ "Look, I'm telling you this because I really don't want to see you get shredded by the end of your first week. You should stay away from anything Malfoy if you want to grow old."_  
  
Ariane smiled politely despite the fact that Draco was staring her down. "I really should be going."  
  
"Why?" he asked, leaning a hand against the wall and looking supremely unconcerned.  
  
"Because I have somewhere to go," she told him, making to walk by and double back to the clock once he was gone. Draco blocked her.  
  
"Where? It's eight o'clock," he said, still sounding silky and casual. "Are you meeting someone?"  
  
"I was going for a walk." She tried to get by again and he got in her way again. This time he met her eyes, and she saw that his gray eyes were stormy. The beginnings of irritation forming in her mind, Ariane made to push him aside; he caught her arm and held it none too gently.  
  
"Walking with Potter?" he snarled.  
  
Ariane blinked at him. "I wasn't planning on it, but if you'd like me to—" Draco snorted in a very unlovely way. Ariane was beginning to wonder what had ever made him attractive to her. "Just let me get about my business, Draco," she told him coldly.  
  
He laughed softly and moved so that she could walk past. "Just remember that nobody who slights Draco Malfoy doesn't regret it."  
  
"Then I have nothing to regret." To offset the chill of her words, she rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment.  
  
Draco walked away just as the clock in the tower struck eight. She pulled her hood up again and walked past the clock tower and around the corner outside, which led to a long covered bridge. Ariane loitered at the entrance for a few minutes and then went back inside, stubbing her toe on the edge of the dais in the twilight. Muttering darkly at her own stupidity, she lit her wand and held her hand over it to block out all but a thin scrap of light.  
  
Ariane grumbled a few swearwords to herself as she found the staircase to the inner parts of the gigantic clock and climbed them. It was a bit like climbing into a living creature: the clock's gears ticked, the hands creaked as they moved to 8:05, and various cogs and rods groaned and clicked like a pulse. She couldn't hear anything but the clock and her own nervous heartbeat, and she had to commend Harry for his choice of meeting places. There was no way that they could be overheard.  
  
"Ariane?"  
  
She jumped a foot, but it was only Harry, looking odd and shadowy in the semi-darkness. "Hi," she said once she had a hold on her self once more, seating herself on a cog that didn't appear to be moving.  
  
Harry nodded and sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, making sure that he was close enough so that they could talk without shouting. "So," he began after an awkward pause. "How did you know the horse's name?"  
  
"Because it's my memory," Ariane confessed. "I was riding the horse, and one of the two men was my brother."  
  
"But how did it get inside my head?" Harry asked, looking troubled.  
  
She bit her lip, trying to figure out how to tell him what she had to while avoiding the whole necromancy business. "When I arrived at Hogwarts, I was having some memory problems. Sometimes I couldn't remember who I was, or where I was, or even—" she laughed a bit to show him how silly it was "—what year it was. Dumbledore thought that if someone read my mind, I would remember everything that I'd forgotten."  
  
"Like Legilimency?" Harry asked.  
  
Ariane was impressed that he'd thought of that so quickly. "Yes. Professor Snape read my mind and it helped things to start coming back, but ever since I've been seeing people's memories when I touch them, sometimes." Harry gave her a quizzical look, so she hurried on. "One of the first was one of Draco Malfoy's, and another was one of yours."  
  
"What did you see?" he asked suspiciously. "When you saw my memory?"  
  
"Something to do with a glass ball and a boy with a broken nose," she replied. "It didn't make sense to me."  
  
Harry went a little paler in the dim light. "Go on." He wasn't laughing or trying to get away yet, so Ariane guessed that he believed her so far.  
  
"Anyway, it seems that it's started happening in reverse—my memories are leaking into other people's heads. I don't know how I'm supposed to control it—I don't even know if it can be controlled." Ariane shrugged and pulled off her cloak. It was warm in the clock tower.  
  
The silence stretched for a moment, then Harry spoke. "Last year I had lessons where I was supposed to learn to defend myself from Legilimency. I wasn't too good, because Snape cracked open my thoughts about a hundred times. My friend Ron thought that it was starting to make my mind—I don't know how to put it."  
  
"It was making you more open-minded?" Ariane asked with a smile.  
  
"Exactly. And you've gotten your head peered inside once. And now we're picking up each other's thoughts."  
  
"Looks like it."  
  
Harry frowned. "But you must be more sensitive than I am, because I've never seen another person's memories besides yours."  
  
Ariane thought about it, the clock ticking around her. "I suppose—well, this is a bit stupid really, but I think that since you were fighting it off when it happened to you, maybe it took longer for your mind to open." She shrugged as Harry shook his head. "It's just a theory."  
  
"No, it's brilliant," he said. "That must be it." They sat with their own private thoughts for a few more minutes, and then Harry asked something completely out of the blue: "Was the man who owned the flying horse called Godric Gryffindor?"  
  
He could read the answer on her stricken face.  
  
"How could that be?" he asked. When she didn't answer, he added "and the other man was called Salazar—he couldn't be Salazar Slytherin?"  
  
Ariane nodded, her mouth very dry.  
  
"But how is that possible? Unless there's two people alive now called Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin...but...are they the actual Gryffindor and Slytherin?" Though his words weren't clear, Ariane understood what he was asking.  
  
"They are," she whispered. She couldn't lie to him, not when he was staring her down like that.  
  
The silence wasn't thoughtful now—it was shocked. It didn't last long though. Ariane broke it, trying to avoid Harry's gaze. "Look," she began, "This seems impossible and all that, but I think I actually sort of died about a thousand years ago, but Salazar brought me back to life again." She reached into her pockets and withdrew Madam Pince's playing cards. Rifling through them, she pulled out the queen of spades and tossed it to him. "That's not a relative, that's me."  
  
Harry studied it, peering closely from Ariane to the card and back again. "Why? Not to be rude, but why would he?"  
  
"He was my brother." Harry swore and Ariane went pink, anger stirring within her. "Look, I don't know what people today think about him, but he's not a monster, all right? He was a good person and he didn't have anything against Muggles until after I died, and even then he wasn't crusading for their extermination! Stop looking at me like that!" For Harry was looking at her as though he'd just realized something. "What?"  
  
"When we first met, in that Potions class, you didn't know who I was," he said quietly, "even though every witch and wizard alive today knows my name."  
  
Ariane tried to remember this and couldn't. She only came up with a vaguely unpleasant first impression of Harry. "Why are you so famous?"  
  
He looked down at his ragged trainers, the wand light reflecting off his round glasses and hiding his eyes. "When I was a baby, Voldemort killed my parents and then tried to kill me, and the curse rebounded and nearly killed him."  
  
"I'm sorry," Ariane told him.  
  
"Why?" he asked defensively. "Everybody was really happy when Voldemort went away, and they never really stopped to feel sad about my mum or dad. They ended up being a means to an end."  
  
"I'm sorry because I know what it's like to not know your parents, and if you don't want any pity then I take it back," she snapped. Her memory flared unexpectedly, and for a moment her ears were filled with the screams of a woman being burnt to death. Harry's face changed, shifting from irritation to horror and then to guilt, and Ariane suddenly felt too responsible for her thoughts. "Sorry," she muttered again. "If you saw."  
  
"I did, and I guess now I should say that I'm sorry."  
  
"I suppose that you should."  
  
"Sorry, then."  
  
"Apology accepted."  
  
Harry nodded, still a bit shaken. "How did you end up at Hogwarts?" he asked slowly. "I mean, why now? If Slytherin brought you back to life, shouldn't you have come back to life then?"  
  
"I don't know what happened. Maybe he made a mistake," she offered, still shocked by how quickly her story had come out. Ariane had thought that if it ever did slip out, it would be if a close friend noticed something odd about her behavior or found some incriminating document. She had never thought that the first person her own age to know would be a boy that she knew only at a distance. "He wasn't perfect."  
  
"So you're Salazar Slytherin's little sister. And you're supposed to be dead."  
  
Ariane pulled her collar to one side so that he could see the thick white scar just beneath her collarbone. "Shot with an arrow. Punctured my lung, or at least that's what the Healer seemed to think. If you still don't think I'm telling the truth, ask me anything." Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "Look, if you really don't believe me you could always sample my thoughts."  
  
He shuddered. "No thanks, I'm having enough trouble with my own." Harry thought for a moment. "What does Godric Gryffindor's sword look like?"  
  
"Silver, with rubies. It was a wedding present, and he never used it except to cut the bread."  
  
Harry smiled a bit to himself, and Ariane was at a loss why this tidbit of information would strike him as funny until a thought invaded her head.  
  
_The basilisk, both eyes gouged out and dripping, snapped at her, its long teeth closing on her arm as she shoved a silver sword up through its brains. A fang pierced her arm just as the basilisk began to thrash in its death throes, and she felt cold as the poison began to work its way through her blood.  
  
The drippy stone chamber looked oddly familiar as it spun around her._  
  
Ariane opened her eyes. Had the basilisk been in her tomb?  
  
BONG!  
  
The clock struck half-past, deafening Ariane, who had unwittingly seated herself with her back against the bell. She clapped her hands to her ears and screwed up her eyes to try and disperse the pain in her head to the rest of her body. The vibrations of the bell knocked her to the ground, and through her fringe Ariane saw that the noise had knocked a few other creatures senseless as well. Several dazed sparrows and a fat beetle were lying scattered nearby. The sparrows recovered quickly and flew off peeping indignantly, but the beetle didn't get a chance. Harry pounced on it, then recoiled. Though Ariane's ears were still ringing too loudly for her to hear his gasp and swearing, she could read his lips and body language well enough to tell that it had bitten him.  
  
The beetle made its escape, flying off into the gears of the clock until it had disappeared. Harry whipped out his wand and silently cried '_Accio!_' but apparently the charm wasn't going to work on the beetle. Ariane tried to see where it had gone, but turning her head made the noise in her ears get louder.  
  
Ariane stuck her little finger in her ear and wiggled it around, trying to ignore the annoying whistling that was penetrating her abused eardrums. "What was that about?" Her voice sounded funny, as though she were talking into a glass.  
  
"Rita Skeeter," Harry said in disgust. "It seems that her writing ban has expired."  
  
"Who?" Ariane asked.  
  
"Rita Skeeter—she's a reporter for the Daily Prophet. That's our newspaper," Harry elaborated when Ariane looked blank. When she raised her eyebrows, still not understanding, he continued. "A newspaper is a sort of thing that they send to everyone who pays for it, to keep them updated on what's going on now."  
  
"Where do they get all the paper from?" Ariane asked. She'd only seen paper once or twice in her whole life. "And how do they make enough copies for everyone? They must write very quickly."  
  
It was Harry's turn to look quizzical. "Didn't you lot have printing presses when you were alive?"  
  
"No—what are those?"  
  
"Look, I don't have time to explain right now. We _have_ to find that beetle." And he began to climb into the workings of the clock, which were ticking and lurching unsafely.  
  
"Harry, stop, you'll get caught and ground to a pulp." Ariane clambered after him, trying to keep her hair and skirt out of the gears. "Why is a beetle so important?"  
  
"It's not a beetle, it's a woman named Rita Skeeter and if we don't catch her she'll go and put a big article in the Daily Prophet about how you're a medieval witch and everybody will know about your brain-reading thing." Harry's voice was muffled by the clicks and bangs of the gears as the quarter hour approached. "You really don't want that."  
  
"That's for sure," Ariane said, taking a different direction from him so that they would cover more area. She scanned the wheels and gears for the beetle, and then crouched down to peer at the rough wooden floor, lighting her wand so that her search would be easier. There was no sign of the beetle, and judging by the silence from Harry he hadn't had any luck either. Kneeling so that she could keep her head well out of reach of the turning gears, Ariane crawled towards the face of the clock.  
  
Then she heard footsteps.  
  
Holding her breath, Ariane drew her knees up under her and breathed "_Nox._"  
  
As her light went out, the wooden platform shook with the footsteps of someone much heavier than she was.  
  
Two someones.  
  
A pair of very big, flat feet shuffled by, closely followed by a pair of bigger feet. Two people held a short conversation that seemed to consist mainly of grunt-like noises, and then the feet began to shuffle back to the staircase, agonizingly slowly. Ariane's knees ached from her cramped position and one of her feet was tingling painfully. As the boat-sized shoes began their loud descent of the stairs, Ariane exhaled and stood up to relieve her joints.  
  
Later she would wonder where her wits had gone begging.  
  
The clock ticked, the gears turned, and a large amount of hair at the top of Ariane's head snagged in the teeth of the wheels. She gasped in pain, and then clapped her hands over her mouth. _Tick._ The loud steps on the stairs had halted—they had probably heard her. _Tick._ As her hair pulled tighter, Ariane balanced on the balls of her feet, still a bit hunched over, so that she wouldn't be hanging by the hairs on the tender top of her head. _Tick._ If something didn't happen very soon, however, she was about to be dangled by the top of her head or be left with a large bald spot. Tears of pain were streaming down her cheeks. _Tick._  
  
_Think of a spell,_ she urged herself. _A spell to get out of places like this._ Her brain drew a blank. _Tick._ Harry abruptly appeared around the large wheel in front of her, apparently about to berate her for making noise. When he saw that she was biting down on her hands to stop herself from screaming, his eyes rounded. "Do something!" she mouthed, a small squeak emerging from her mouth.  
  
"_Abscido_!" Harry whispered, and Ariane sat down hard on the floor, not caring if anyone heard as she massaged the top of her head. The hairs that had been caught in the wheel were now only four or five inches long, and the scalp beneath them was tender and felt a bit bloody.  
  
"What did you—" she began to ask, meaning to find out the spell, as it had seemed very useful. Harry clapped a hand over her mouth as the floor shook once more with the footsteps of the two gorilla-sized humans. He didn't let go right away, apparently not trusting her to keep her mouth shut. Their minds took advantage of this close contact to share memories.  
  
_"They might've run straight through to the hall," said a rough voice. Ariane was hiding under a desk, her heart beating so fast that it was painful.  
  
"Check under the desks," said another._  
  
Abruptly, Ariane realized that she was not the one experiencing the memory. It was Harry's. She'd never been able to tell them apart before, it had always been the context that had tipped her off.  
  
_She—Harry saw the knees of the dark robed man—a Death Eater—bend. She—he poked his wand out and yelled "STUPEFY!"  
  
_The scene switched.  
  
_"I will not even consider it!" Salazar shouted, his long black hair tangled and half in his eyes. He looked quite frightening. "What makes you think that I would give up my only flesh and blood to the son of a tanner?"  
  
"She loves him, you dumb bastard!" Godric roared back. "I can see it and he's not even in my house!"  
  
"She does not!" Salazar replied. "I can assure you that the only person she loves is me, just as the only one I love is her."  
  
The bigger man looked irritated by this statement. Ariane watched from the crack in the door as Godric ran a hand over his neat beard in frustration. She could tell that he was about to ram Salazar's stubborn head into a wall. "Why would you make the one person you love an old maid?" he demanded. "Why would you chain her to you?"  
  
"I'm not imprisoning her, if that's what you're insinuating," Salazar snapped. "She's free to do whatever she likes—"  
  
"But not to marry someone she loves?"  
  
"SHE DOES NOT LOVE HIM!"  
  
"Salazar, you pig-headed fool, she came to me so that I would ask you because she was too afraid to do it herself. How is it possible, if you love each other so much, that she is frightened of you?"  
  
That shot some of the wind from Salazar's sails. "Ariane was afraid of me?" he asked quietly.  
  
"Yes, and the fact that she would rather approach me than you speaks volumes, as she has mistrusted me since the day we met."  
  
Her brother went red with rage. "You're lying! Laramy the tanner's son does not love my sister and she does not love him, and if you insist on pressing this matter any further, my friend, then you will leave my house and never set foot in it again."  
  
Godric would not stop pressing, Ariane knew it before he even spoke. "If you think that she'll stop loving you after you get married, you're wrong. You'll just have to get used to sharing her love with Laramy."  
  
"I'd prefer to find a cold place in hell first." Salazar's tone was flat and dangerous, and his wand was out. Instinctively Ariane backed away from the door in case it blasted off its hinges. As she retreated down the hall, she heard him add, "With luck, I won't have to take the trouble."  
  
_Harry shook her shoulders lightly. "Hey, snap out of it."  
  
"Thanks," she said. "For that and the whole hair thing."  
  
"Yeah, that looked a bit painful."  
  
Ariane punched his shoulder lightly. "Very dry," she told him sarcastically. "If you don't mind, I've had quite enough adventures for tonight." She crawled into the open platform and stood up, stretching out her back and rubbing her crown gently. Bending to collect her cloak, she noticed something. Quickly she searched her pockets, swore, and began hunting around on the ground.  
  
"What is it?" Harry asked, collecting his own cloak (which was silvery and looked as though it was woven of Demiguise hair).  
  
"I don't believe it—I've lost the playing cards that Madam Pince loaned me."  
  
Harry stood very still. "You mean the ones with all the Founders and you on them?"  
  
"Yes—she's going to kill me, Harry, they were only a loan!"  
  
"I know, you said that, but I wonder..." he trailed off, scanned the platform, and muttered, "Rita! She must have taken them."  
  
Ariane was beginning to think that Rita Skeeter was an imaginary friend of Harry's that he blamed for things going wrong. "Look, it's dark and we're both tired. Let's just sleep on this and talk again sometime tomorrow—have you got Care of Magical Creatures on Thursday afternoons?" Harry nodded, looking as though he didn't think they ought to just accept the missing cards. "Fine, we'll talk then, once I've fixed my hair and gotten rid of this pounding headache."  
  
"I don't know if that's a good idea...Rita can write some nasty things."  
  
"She can't bother me," Ariane said, "at least not more than she has already, what with me getting stuck in clocks and things trying to find her. And how does she go about writing for newspapers if she's an insect?" She was beginning to babble with fatigue.  
  
"She's not really a beetle, she's an Animagus," Harry explained patiently.  
  
"I'll put that on my list of things to find out about," Ariane promised tartly, pulling her cloak on and starting off down the stairs. "Right after who killed me and what happened to all my family and friends. Good night."  
  
_Author's Note: Just a few hellos to reviewers.  
  
Mockingbird-Love your fic, love your reviews, now I'm taking a leaf out of your book and giving greetings to those who review XD  
  
Purplereader- Thanks for your support and staunch defense, lol.'  
  
Rebecca- Sorry to have triggered your gag reflex, but thanks for the notes on my writing style.  
  
Also, big hugs to katy, Timra, and Nestle._


	12. Rita Skeeter's Scoop

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 12: Rita Skeeter's Scoop**

"What did you do?" Daphne cried, staring at Ariane's near scalping with round eyes. "It's so short on top!"

"It would look perfectly normal if you were to take up residence in the trailer parks of America," Tuyet suggested, not looking up from her Charms homework. "It's got that sort of random, uneducated quality to it."

As Ariane had never heard of America nor of trailer parks, she wasn't at all offended, though Daphne was. "That's horrible of you to say!" she said at top volume, petting Ariane's head as though it were a beloved pet that had taken sick.

Tuyet didn't seem perturbed. This was one of her favorite hobbies: when she was irritated about something, she would irritate other people until she felt better. "I aim to disappoint."

Daphne made a face and then turned back to Ariane. "We have to fix it," she announced dramatically. "There's no way you can go to class tomorrow with your hair like that."

The silver-haired girl bent and stared into the mirror at the short section at the top of her head, which was sticking up as though it were proud of itself. "How do you fix it? Can't we magic it back?" Daphne shook her head gravely. "Why not?"

"Any charm that has to do with hair is risky business," she said, her springy curls trembling as she shook her head. "There was a girl in Gryffindor last year who misfired a Hair-Thickening Charm at herself and made her eyebrows grow like mad."

"She didn't do it to herself," Tuyet interrupted, still not looking away from her Charms work. "I saw one of the older boys last year hit her with it while she was in the library."

"Why would someone want another person's eyebrows—" Ariane began to ask, but Daphne pushed her down onto a trunk and went off into the bathroom. Ariane could hear her classmate clattering around inside and it made her very nervous. "Tuyet?" she asked hopefully.

"I'm not going to save you," said Tuyet flatly, glancing up for a moment through her blonde fringe. "You didn't head her off before she got going."

"That's not my fault!" Ariane began, but she didn't have time for anything else because Daphne came bounding out of the bathroom with scissors in hand. Her blue-grey eyes were sparkling with excitement at this new beauty challenge. To be fair, it was a rare event that allowed Daphne to practice any sort of beauty ritual on her year mates—Tuyet was usually unwilling; Pansy off doing prefect duties, and Millicent was just never around. Ariane had let Daphne file her nails and paint them every shade of pink known to wizard kind, but she had never let her touch her hair.

Now was a different story. Ariane squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to rid herself of the creeping fear that her silver curls would end up as short as a boy's. "What're you going to do?" she asked apprehensively.

"I was thinking longer in front..." Daphne gushed for a good five minutes about all her plans for saving Ariane's hair, but the victim in question didn't absorb most of it.

Ariane took a deep breath and blew it out, making her fringe fan up in the front. "You know what, Daphne? Just do whatever you want with it."

Tuyet looked up from her Charms, mouth slightly open in shock. "Are you mad?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter," Ariane said flatly, closing her eyes tight. "Cut away."

Late that night, after everyone else had gone to sleep and Millicent's snores filled the room, Ariane sat on her bed with the curtains drawn around her, fingering her short hair and wondering if she had done the right thing by telling Harry the truth.

_I couldn't have lied,_ she thought, twisting a curl around her finger until her tender scalp protested. _Not to him. What if he saw that I was lying?_

_Why did I even go to the clock in the first place?_ she asked herself.

_Because I needed to know that I wasn't going mad._

_Well, that's settled. I'm not mad. But why couldn't I have found validation someplace where I couldn't have been overheard?_

_And,_ said a part of her that was growing used to the prejudice between the Houses,_ why did it have to be a Gryffindor?_

Ariane snorted aloud at her own stupidity. _There's nothing wrong with Gryffindors, _she reminded herself._ After all, Godric did me a favor once even though I'd given him nothing but the cold shoulder for years. There's something to be said for that kindness._

That brought her back the memory and Salazar's anger. It made her shiver even if it hadn't been directed right at her—though it was intended for Laramy, which was hardly any better. "Why did he hate him so?" she mused silently. Ariane pulled her short hair again in frustration at her own stupidity. Godric had as much as told her: _"If you think that she'll stop loving you after you get married, you're wrong. You'll just have to get used to sharing her love with Laramy."_

And Salazar had replied, "_"I'd prefer to find a cold place in hell first. With luck, I won't have to take the trouble."_

Dumbledore had said that the arrow had missed its real target. Had Laramy been the real target?

"No," she muttered. "That's utterly ridiculous. It was probably one of Salazar's enemies, trying to hurt him." But, Ariane recalled uncomfortably, she had told Dumbledore that Salazar had no dire enemies. It had been the truth. There was no one who wanted to kill Salazar or herself.

That she knew of.

Ariane flopped down onto her bed and stared at the canopy, her brain ticking like the clock. If Salazar had had an enemy, he would have discussed it with her—unless he was trying to protect her by keeping her oblivious to any problems. That wouldn't be too out of character for Salazar, to want to protect Ariane from harm. After all, he had tried to resurrect her—not tried, succeeded—and he had been so horribly upset when she'd been shot.

She'd check those old French records in the morning. They might say whether or not Salazar had a deadly enemy.

Ariane flipped over, feeling much too awake to sleep, and reached for the copy of _Hogwarts, a History_ that she'd checked out of the library. Though it was no help at all when it came to her past, it was very informative when she was trying to find out what had happened between her death and waking up in the tomb. There were some questions that she couldn't ask anyone without getting weird looks, because those things were things that everyone was expected to know now.

Like Voldemort. Who was this person, besides the Dark Lord? Why on earth was he called the Dark Lord? Was he the Lord of Darkness? Where was Darkness? Or did they mean that he was Satan? "If he's descended from Salazar, he can't be Satan," Ariane murmured to herself, smiling a bit at the ridiculousness of it all. She reach over to her night table again and replaced _Hogwarts, a History_, instead taking _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ from her table and propping it open on her knees.

On page two hundred twenty-seven, her question was answered. "Lord Voldemort is a direct ancestor of Salazar Slytherin," she read, then caught herself. "Ancestor?" Yes, that was what it said. The editor of this book must not have been terribly literate if they confused opposites like 'ancestor' and 'descendant'. _What morons._ She flipped to the front of the book but couldn't find the name of the editor anywhere.

The book, apart from that error, was quite informative. It told her a few things she didn't know (or couldn't remember) about Salazar, including that he had dabbled in the Dark side of magic far more than just raising his little sister from the dead. After her death he had done all sorts of horrible things, including hiding a basilisk in a secret chamber under the school. Even before she'd been shot Salazar had been doing deals with demons and had even Petrified a small village girl, according to the author.

_It was the morning after the Midsummer feast and festival, and Ariane was still dressed in her blue holiday clothes; crushed flowers in her hair where she hadn't bothered to remove them the night before. Salazar had actually let her go to the party in the village that year instead of keeping her inside with him (Salazar hated parties and feasts of all kinds), and Ariane meant to thank him._

_She knocked on his workroom door and then poked her head inside. "Salazar?" she called. The underground room was quite dark and quite empty except for a single guttering candle on his desk that illuminated several pages of Salazar's cramped, precise handwriting. Ariane went into the room to blow out the candle, thinking that Salazar had gone to bed late again and forgotten to put out all his lights. After considering the tiny flame, she picked it up by the holder so that when she blew wax wouldn't spatter on Salazar's notes, then turned away from the desk. She had lifted it to her face and pursed her lips to put out the light when something caught her eye directly opposite her._

_A face, a human face, white as marble, blank eyes wide and glassy, lips parted as if in shock. It looked dead._

_Ariane shrieked and dropped the candle. The face was hidden in darkness now, but Ariane still stared at where it had been, unable to move, her whole body shaking with fright and adrenaline. There was a thump from above—someone in Slytherin House had heard her fright—and then Salazar burst through the door with one of Rowena's glass lamps in his hand, his face drawn with fear._

"_Ariane!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong?"_

_The glass lamp (a ball of glass in which a strange, otherworldly light was imprisoned) was much brighter than the candle, and it threw the corpse into high relief. Ariane pointed at it, her hand trembling, unable to make a sound. Salazar swore and threw a blanket over it, then turned back to her and grabbed her hands appealingly. "Little sister—" he began, bending down so that he could look into her eyes._

"_What was it?" she asked hollowly, still staring at the now-hidden corpse. "Who was it?"_

"_Who is it," Salazar corrected. "Ariane, she's not dead." His black hair hid one of his eyes from her. "It was an accident," he began, but Ariane interrupted him._

"_Who is she, Salazar?"_

_Salazar blinked and then looked back at the unmoving girl. "I don't know. I was researching Petrification and doing some tests on rats, and she wandered in during one of my tests. I think she's someone from the village."_

"_She's Petrified." Her voice sounded very hollow and distant._

"_Yes."_

"_Not dead?"_

"_No, she's still alive."_

_Ariane looked over his shoulder at the small, blanket-covered form. "How do you get someone un-Petrified?" she asked._

_Salazar winced. "That's what I was doing the experiments for. I don't know how."_

"_What?" Ariane jerked her hands out of his. "You mean that she's just going to be propped against the back wall of your workshop until you figure out how to undo it? Salazar, you can't do that to a girl that doesn't even know what magic is!"_

_Salazar looked a bit hurt at her tone, but raised his chin in his most stubborn fashion and replied, "Do you know how long I've been working on this? Months and months, Ariane. I will _not_ be forced to abandon this by some _Muggle_." His tone was absolute, and she wilted before it. All her starch defiance was gone. "Ariane, I would never hurt anyone on purpose—well, only if they were going to hurt you—and even then I would feel horrible about it."_

"_I know, Salazar," she said quietly. "Sorry." And she crept out guiltily, convinced that she had done him wrong._

Ariane let the book fall open onto her knees as she clapped both her hands over her mouth. She knew better now. _I was only nine years old,_ she reasoned with herself. _How could I have known that he'd been fooling around with Dark Magic?_

_Maybe you should have known when he let you out of his sight for hours at a time. He didn't want you underfoot while he was Petrifying rats._

"Not to mention that the raising of the dead is necromancy of an almost unheard of degree," she murmured. "Should I really hate the thing that brought me back?" Resolutely Ariane closed _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and lay down, one hand still winding her curls. She hadn't taken a good look in a mirror yet, but she supposed she looked a bit like a silky-haired goat a month after shearing season. _I don't want to think about that either,_ Ariane decided, and tried to wipe her mind blank.

The girl's glassy eyes seemed to stare at her whenever she closed her eyes. Ariane drifted off to sleep only to jolt awake again, plagued by a vision of the girl. She had been quite young, Ariane decided around four in the morning. Probably no older than eight, with thick gold plaits and wide brown eyes. _I don't even know if Salazar got her un-Petrified. I don't even know her name._

Ariane drifted off to sleep again and managed to stay that way for what felt like five minutes, and then awoke soaked in freezing sweat. Her nightmare had expanded to the girl reaching out to clutch at the blue holiday dress she'd been wearing, ripping at it until Ariane couldn't get away from her. Ariane could nearly feel the frozen dead fingers snatching at the crushed flowers in her silver hair. Panting, she got out of bed and poured herself a glass of water. As she downed it, spilling water down the front of her pajamas, she saw the first hint of sunlight hit the surface of the lake outside the window, making the black depths sparkle green and blue on the dormitory floor.

She swore under her breath and climbed back into bed. This was going to be an awful day, she thought as she buried her head underneath a pillow.

If she hadn't been achy-eyed and stumbling from her lack of sleep, Ariane would have immediately noticed the change in conversation when she entered the Great Hall later that morning. As it was, she was pouring heaps of sugar into her coffee before she noticed Daphne staring at her. "What?" she asked grumpily. "Pass the marmalade." Tuyet passed it obligingly, but didn't say anything either. Ariane spread great sticky lumps of marmalade onto her bread and took a bite. Her teeth made ridges in the marmalade.

Daphne chose to start talking while Ariane's jaws were glued together. "I don't suppose you've seen the paper yet today?"

"What paper?" Ariane asked blankly, once she had swallowed. Draco was watching her with keen interest from further down the table. "Any paper in particular?"

"The Daily Prophet," Tuyet said bluntly. "You're in it."

Ariane dropped her bread, which fell marmalade-side down onto the floor. _Splut._ "What?" she gasped. "Why?" Her insides had gone to ice. That odd insect in the clock—Harry was right—_oh god_.

Draco unfurled a copy and handed it to her. A shiny print of the Queen of Spades from Madam Pince's cards crowned the seventh page of the paper, above the headline "A Girl That Shouldn't Exist." Beneath the headline was a picture of her sitting cross-legged inside the clock, not quite looking at the viewer, a curl twined around her finger.

Ariane read the headline again, her face brilliant red, and then continued to the rest of the article.

By the time she was done, she would not have been surprised if steam were rising from the top of her head, she was so embarrassed.

Rita had written a lot of things that were untrue and a lot of things that were uncomfortably true, but the most hurtful thing she had written was 'This girl, a bastard child of a summer wanderer, cannot possibly know that her existence is not only impossible, it is also illegal.' Ariane knew that she was a bastard, knew that she would never know who her father really was, but she would have given almost anything to stop Rita Skeeter from writing it in a major publication. The horrible woman didn't stop there, either: 'When the necromancy was used to bring this girl back to life, her real father must have been found—but who it is nobody alive could say, as his real identity was known to nobody, not even the woman he impregnated.'

There were no words for the feelings swirling inside Ariane's head, but Rita had also managed to put some words in the paper that Ariane had never said in her life. Not only that, Rita had implied that Salazar had wanted Ariane to marry him, and she all but stated that they had been incestuous.

"That awful woman," Ariane said, voice thick with emotion. "How could she tell lies about my family like that? How _dare_ she? I never even spoke to her!"

"It's complete rubbish," Tuyet agreed with feeling when Ariane laid down the paper. "How could you be a thousand years old?"

Ariane swallowed hard and tried to blink back the tears of rage and humiliation that were prickling at the corners of her eyes. "I don't know," she said shakily. "How could she write such horrible things? About my father..." The thought of her father sent her over the edge, and dark tears began to spot the gray cloth on her lap. Daphne made a sympathetic noise and patted her shoulder. "And my brother!" Ariane burst out, angrily swiping a tear from her cheek. "How can she suggest that I ever—would even consider—"

"Disgusting lies," Daphne said soothingly, shaking her head.

Tuyet picked up the paper and in a grand gesture lit it afire with her wand. It was a nice thought, but it earned Tuyet two night's detention from Professor McGonagall.

Ariane could barely bring herself to look up at the rest of the school. They must know, otherwise they wouldn't be whispering, whispering about her past, whispering about her parents, whispering about her brother. When she did look up, it was to grab her cup of coffee, stand, and walk out of the room, trying to ignore the voices and the wet traces on her cheeks. By the time she was out of the Great Hall, she was nearly running.

She didn't go to her morning class—she couldn't even remember what it was. Instead she explored the Slytherin Common room, looking for rooms that she remembered but seemed to have vanished. Salazar's old workroom, for one.

It was empty, which gave her time to study the old architecture through the newer plaster and moldings that had been added after her time. It also gave her something to concentrate on besides her embarrassment and her hatred of Rita Skeeter. Ariane wasn't very good at facing those things that loomed ahead, instead she focused on the present and the common room.

After carefully considering all angles of the common room, Ariane went over to the fireplace and knocked on the stone wall to its left. It made a dull noise, not entirely solid but still stone. "They must have bricked up his workshop after he died," she muttered to herself, running a hand over her shorn curls.

"Whose workshop?" someone asked curiously from behind her. Ariane thought that her heart would fail, but instead she whipped around and saw Harry and Ron standing in the middle of the Common Room looking at her.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "This is the Slytherin common room!"

Ron blinked at her. "Yes, it is," he nodded, with the air of someone talking down to a lesser intelligence.

"How did you get in?" she asked wildly. "Why didn't I see you? How did you find out the password?"

Harry and Ron exchanged glances and grins, but, infuriatingly, both said nothing. Ariane then decided to kill them both and hide the bodies. It was just too much to deal with, having her name in the paper and having no hair and nightmares and two Gryffindors standing in the Slytherin common room looking quite comfortable with their situation. "Tell me," she said, pointing her wand at both of them, "Or I swear I'll hex you both into oblivion."

"Take it easy," Harry told her. "We read the article."

"Funny, so did the whole school!"

"We came to see if you were all right."

"I'm fine." Her tone would have been quite reasonable if it hadn't been so loud. Ron raised his eyebrows skeptically. "I'm fine!" Ariane shouted. Sparks shot out of the end of her wand.

"Blimey, point that thing somewhere else," Ron told her, raising his hands to protect his face.

"What're you looking for?" Harry asked casually. Ariane was about to tell him that it was none of his business at all when she felt something in her head go—odd. It was as though her thoughts were shifting without her permission, and without prompting the memory of Salazar's workroom came into the front of her mind. She shot a sharp look at Harry, who gazed innocently back.

"Stop it," she told him, and then gave a fierce mental shove to reorder her thoughts. Harry winced. "That's rude," she informed him.

"Sorry," he said, looking at least a little ashamed of himself. Ariane supposed that it was some sort of progress.

She hesitated for a moment, then asked, "How did you do that?"

"What're you looking for?"

Ron watched them glare at each other for a minute or so, then got bored. "Harry, this is stupid. If you two are just going to stare, I'm going. I don't fancy being here when the rest of the Slytherins come back." Ariane and Harry glanced at him, then back at each other. "Look, trade answers or something."

Ariane thought that was an excellent idea. She didn't think that the location of Salazar's workshop would be a big secret; the only reason she was hiding it was because Harry wanted to know it. Knowing how he had been reading her thoughts would be a lot more valuable than a dusty old workroom.

"Fine by me," she said coolly.

"All right. What is it?"

"You go first."

Harry and Ron exchanged looks again, but this time Ariane could read them. _Should I tell her?_ Harry was asking. Ron replied with a '_We shouldn't waste more time here, this was your stupid idea' _look.

"Right," Harry said. "All you have to do is sort of relax into a persons thoughts. You just sort of breathe with them and concentrate on what you want to know, and eventually it floats to the top of their minds. It works better if the other person's all worked up about something, though."

Ariane made a mental note to practice this. "I was looking for Salazar's old workroom," she confessed. "Wait—does he—" Well, it was stupid, but she wasn't sure that Ron knew that Rita's article was loosely based in reality.

"Ron knows. And so does Hermione." Before Ariane could get very angry that Harry had told two other people, he said, "I told Hermione because I knew she'd love a challenge, figuring out your past."

"And I'm not going to tell anyone, so will you please point that thing someplace else?" Ron asked, gesturing at her wand, which was still pointed at their faces.

Ariane peered at them. "Where's Hermione?"

"Taking notes in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Look, we skipped Connor's class for this, and she'll get all of us for it later. Can't we just be friendly for a few minutes?"

She made a face and put her wand down. "I'm not sure I like being a challenge."

Harry changed the subject. "So where's the workroom supposed to be?"

Ariane pointed to the left of the fireplace. "This part of the common room actually used to be the kitchen for Slytherin House. Salazar's workroom was to the left of the hearth, down a flight of stairs. It looks like the entrance has been moved, though."

"Or covered up," Harry agreed. "Are you sure this is the right fireplace?"

"Positive. I'd recognize it anywhere." A long pause stretched as they considered the wall to the left of the fireplace.

Ron peered at the blank stone wall. "It looks a bit like the entrance to the Slytherin Common room. Is there a password?" Ariane thought that it was an utterly stupid idea—how many stretches of blank stone wall were there in Hogwarts? Thousands? Should she go to each of them and shout passwords until she was blue in the face? Harry seemed to think it had merit, though.

"Try a password, Ariane," he urged her.

"Like what?" she demanded. "I think we should just try to blast the stones off the doorway." Harry and Ron both gave her incredulous looks. "Oh, fine."

And, much to her irritation, she did as Harry asked. "Salazar Slytherin. Serpent. _Draconus_." Ariane had gone through everything she could think of that had anything remotely to do with Salazar or Slytherin House and repeated a few of them in Old French and Latin per request. "This is stupid," she told them. "It's probably been bricked up or destroyed."

"Wait. What was that last one?"

"_Malefactor_. It was what we called Godric's oldest son."

"What's it mean?"

"An evil-doer." Ariane smiled a little wickedly at the consternation on the two Gryffindor's faces. It was easy for her to imagine the Founders as real people who belched and swore and occasionally made awesome things happen, but Harry and Ron probably knew as much about Godric Gryffindor as she knew about America. Godric's eldest son had been foul-mouthed, fatter than anyone she'd ever seen before, and lazy as anything. She remembered Godric's irritation that his lands and titles would be left to such a pig, but luckily for Godric the _Malefactor_ had suffered a stroke when Ariane was fifteen. They had found him in the privies, if her memory was accurate.

"Try saying it in Parseltongue," Harry suggested, breaking through her thoughts.

Ariane tried it without asking how he knew she spoke Parseltongue. It didn't work. "Your guess is as good as mine as to what it could be," she told him. "We've been here nearly an hour. People will be coming back soon. There's no other way out...out of the common room..." she stopped and stared into space, seeing Salazar's young face in her mind. "There will always be another way out for us," she murmured to herself, running a hand over her curls. "It's a total guess, but it could work—he would know that it was only me who would know the password..."

"What?" Ron asked, confused.

"_Death forgot me_," Ariane hissed in Parseltongue. Harry made a small noise of recognition.

At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, a section of the ornate mantle sunk backwards and downward, leaving a dark passageway that showed the top of a flight of stairs spiraling down. There was at least four inches of dust on the stairs, making them look dreamlike and powdery. Smiling triumphantly, Ariane looked over her shoulder at Harry and Ron's aghast faces.

"Coming?"

_Author's Note: Sorry that this took so long. I wrote half of it, went on vacation for two weeks (couldn't take my laptop, I was crushed), and when I came back and read what I had written--and I hated it. It was horrible. So I rewrote it, and hopefully it's less horrible now. Leave me a review._


	13. Flesh, Blood, and Bone

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 13: Flesh, Blood, and Bone**

The stairs spiraled down seemingly into eternity, but once Ariane lit her wand she saw that it was actually not quite as far as that. In fact there were only fifteen rather steep stairs, but she could see the door into the workshop at the bottom.

"Blimey," said Ron, sounding a bit shaken. "I didn't know you could speak Parseltongue."

Ariane was feeling too irritated with the both of them to be nice. "I may be wrong, but since I'm Salazar Slytherin's sister I thought it would be quite obvious that I would be able to." Ron ran both his hands through his hair, making it stand on end.

"There's nothing down there that might eat us, right?" Harry asked, peering into the stairwell apprehensively. "Because the last place we went that Salazar Slytherin made, there was a basilisk."

"Why would he put a basilisk in his own workshop?" Ariane returned acidly. "I'll go down first, if you don't want to risk yourselves." She began a slow descent of the stairs, careful not to slip on the dust, and then looked back at the two boys. "Come on," she told Harry. "You were so keen to find out what I was on about before."

At the other end of the common room, a voice Ariane recognized said, "Slatero." It was Tuyet, probably coming from Professor Connor's class to tell Ariane off for not going. The stone wall grated slowly aside to let Tuyet into the room.

Eager not to be caught in the Slytherin Common Room, Harry and Ron nearly jumped down the passageway, and in doing so Ron missed a step, slid in the dust, and knocked Ariane and Harry all the way down the stairs. Luckily it was a spiral staircase and that stopped them from building up too much speed, but it was a painful fall. To top it all off, the passageway didn't close behind them, and Tuyet was soon at the top of it looking down.

"Hello?" she called warily, unable to see the tangle of bodies at the bottom. "Where'd this come from?" she muttered to herself.

Ariane opened her mouth to call up to her friend, but Harry clapped a hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him and failed, and then heard Tuyet's feet on the stairs. _She's too nosy for her own good,_ Ariane thought, forgetting that she had to be nearly as nosy. Silently she willed Tuyet to turn and go back up the stairs, go back into the common room, and after Tuyet was there she willed the stone wall to close again.

Stone rasped against stone, and Tuyet gave a short cry of terror as the light from the common room was extinguished. Ariane grimaced and thought _wrong order_, then pushed someone off her and climbed up the stairs. She waved her hands blindly in front of her, hoping to find Tuyet before her friend panicked. Her fingertips closed around an ankle, and Ariane whispered "Tuyet, come down here," hoping not to alert anyone else that might have followed Tuyet into the common room.

Tuyet panicked. Maybe it was justified, but having someone kick you in the head rarely seems that way. Ariane and Tuyet rolled down the stairs again, but Ariane didn't notice the fall because it felt as though sparklers were going off inside her brain. By the time she was on the ground again, she couldn't have said which way was up, but she was grateful for the solidity of the floor as it tilted and whirled with her. Somebody yelled a spell near her head, making it throb, and then someone else picked her up and propped her against the wall.

"Ariane? Ariane?" Harry slapped her face lightly, which made the world stop spinning. Well, it slowed. She opened her eyes and saw Harry's right in front of her, such a bright green that they had flecks of yellow in them. Ariane's head was too swimmy for her to think clearly, but she had the distinct impression that she'd seen those eyes before. She stored the thought in the back of her mind for further consideration, and then closed her eyes, feeling very sick.

"I think she's got a whatchacallit—a concussion," Harry told Ron, who said "Blimey, she needs to get us out of here!"

"No, I know the password," Harry said confidently. "It was just in Parseltongue, that's all." His hands still held her shoulders firmly against the wall.

"I'm going to be sick," Ariane said, and he released her instantly. She staggered over to a dusty bowl and was about to be sick in that, but suddenly changed direction and threw up her coffee and marmalade onto the floor next to the table the bowl was on. Ariane wiped her mouth on her sleeve and felt much better.

"Urgh," Ron said in disgust, moving out of range of the puddle. "Why didn't you use the bowl?"

"Because," Ariane said in a lofty tone, "That bowl is a Pensieve. Vomit would probably ruin it." She steadied herself on its table, still feeling wobbly on her feet. "Where's Tuyet?"

"Ron Stunned her," Harry said, pointing at the crumpled blonde-haired girl at the foot of the stairs. "So that she wouldn't send all the Slytherins down here by screaming."

"Is she all right, though?" Ariane asked, with a worried glance at her friend. "She's not permanently damaged or anything?"

"Bit bruised, yea," said Ron, "But she'll wake up eventually. Don't worry about her—what are all these things?" He pointed at a rusty object that resembled a many-legged creature. "Wild."

"Yeah, this room is full of stuff like that," Harry said, peering around. "A lot of these things look like stuff Dumbledore has in his office." There were a lot of delicate instruments, tarnished with age, standing on tables around the room, and a whole desk full of books and papers. There was a book open on the desk, written in a scribe's neat, readable handwriting. Ariane went over to it and began to read as Harry investigated the empty Pensieve and Ron tinkered with one of the rusted instruments.

"This is a book of law," she said after a few minutes deciphering the Old French. "Punishments for lawbreakers."

"Are they gory?" Ron asked brightly.

"Pretty ordinary," Ariane replied. "Mostly hangings, though if you steal another man's wife you can have your manly bits crushed beneath the miller's stone." Ron and Harry both winced while Ariane giggled. She turned the page. "Oh, here are some interesting ones. These are for murder."

"Murder?" Harry came over and peered over her shoulder. "Like what kind?"

"Mostly it depends on who you murder. Like if you were a peasant and murdered a noble, you would be drawn and quartered, but if you were a noble that murdered a peasant you would only be beheaded. That's a lot more humane than hanging."

Ron used the sleeve of his robe to clean off the silver mirror he had found. "Did you lot really do all that stuff?" He peered at the back of the mirror, then breathed on the looking glass and rubbed enthusiastically.

"Mostly we just hanged people," Ariane said, and shivered. "But sometimes, if what they did was really awful, we went by the books. Here are all the punishments for if you murdered different members of your own family." Her finger ran down the column, and then paused on one that had been circled in ink. There was a date next to it in shaky handwriting: "5th Oct. 1015".

Harry had spotted it too. "What's that one?"

Ariane cleared her throat and read, "If a man should kill his brother's wife or his betrothed sister, he should be sentenced to be hung with weights and marched into a deep pool of water, where he would then be drowned until he is certainly dead..." Her voice trailed off.

She knew that Harry was thinking the same thing she was, and cut him off. "That couldn't be what they did to Salazar. I wasn't officially betrothed."

Harry looked skeptical. "What if Laramy claimed that you had agreed to be engaged or betrothed or whatever?"

"I couldn't be married without my guardian's permission."

"Well then who was your guardian?" he asked, a keen light in his green eyes.

"Salazar, of course," she said with irritation, and then paused as a new memory flared. "No—he and I were both under the care of—under the care of Godric Gryffindor. But he never assumed the responsibilities of a guardian with me."

"But if he was an official guardian, then that kid could have asked him for you and still been inside the law, right?"

Ariane was not sure she liked where this conversation was going. "That's right."

"So if the guy—"

"Laramy," Ariane said crossly.

"—yes, I know that—if he did that then when you died he could have accused Salazar of murdering his betrothed and had Godric as a witness."

That made a lot of sense and Ariane would have been impressed by the logic if she hadn't known it was impossible. She opened her mouth to make a comment that would make it clear that his statement was impossible, found that she didn't have one, and closed her mouth. "He didn't do it," she muttered under her breath.

Harry looked as though he would have like to retort, but was distracted by Ron's swearing as one of the instruments began to claw its way up the front of his trousers. It looked as though it were on a mission. Harry grabbed up the book of law and smashed it to bits, which made Tuyet stir and mutter sourly, which made Ron Stun her again. Ariane didn't like this and told him so, but Ron was convinced he had just narrowly escaped the _castrati_ choir and not feeling very pleasant at the moment. It was a marvelous diversion, and left Ariane to climb onto the sturdy old desk and read through Salazar's papers while Harry and Ron investigated the other instruments.

The papers were hard to read. Salazar drifted between Latin, Old French, Old English, and something Ariane couldn't read that she suspected was their mother's first language. Mostly they were details of spells he was trying or diagrams of gardens he wanted to set up. A few were bad pen drawings of his wife, apparently a series of efforts to prove his affection (Ariane guessed that the reason, judging by the dates of the adjacent notes, was that she had born him a child, most likely a son). She doubted they had ever made it to her; it was more likely that Salazar had asked Helga to do the painting for him.

Bored, she flipped through the notes faster and faster. She paused briefly at the notes regarding Petrification, but they were as brief and impersonal as though he'd never made a mistake and Petrified a human girl. Ariane glanced up for a moment, watching Harry and Ron play with the old magical artifacts. They were politely waiting for her to finish reading, though they might have been unaware of the time due to the steady, dim light of their wands. Hours could have passed and they wouldn't be able to tell.

Ariane glanced back down and saw a bold, shaky title beneath her fingers: "On the Subject of Necromancy and the Raising of Souls."

She brought her lit wand closer. It was a lengthy piece of parchment, nearly four feet, and Ariane skimmed over it hand over hand until she found the section about the actual raising and not the preparations, which were tedious and long.

_The kettle should be of a size that the departed can crouch within it, and perfectly formed in all ways._

Right, that was nice. Ariane didn't much care for being raised to life in a kettle. Very unglamorous. Helga would have called it 'kitchen magic'.

_Place the departed inside the kettle, making sure that they are entirely submerged beneath the potion. _Under this, Salazar had written 'Five buckets full'.

_Add: The flesh of a servant_

_The blood of a foe_

_The bone of the father_

Ariane squinted at Salazar's messy handwriting, brought the light closer, and frowned. He had written 'puzzle?', then scratched it out and written all sorts of synonyms for 'puzzle' underneath it. "Puzzle, enigma, challenge, riddle, problem, conundrum, mystery," Ariane read disgustedly. "What a great help."

"What's that?" Ron asked, testing a pointy instrument on the wooden table. "Got a thesaurus there or something?"

"No," Ariane said, her voice thick with irritation. "I thought the name of my father would be in this and its not."

Harry moved around so that he could peer over her shoulder and read the part about flesh, blood, and bone. Ariane felt him go rigid next to her, and by leaning a little closer she could hear and see the memory that made his face go white.

_A caldron sat quietly on the very old grave in a sort of churchyard. Ariane turned inside the memory and looked at Harry, who was bound so tightly to a tombstone that he looked like a spider's prey. His face was scratched and he was staring into the cauldron with dread. The tombstone he was tied to was quite worn and chipped, but the faint family name could still be made out next to it. There was a hunched, shuffling man wrapped from head to toe in a black cloak, who was muttering an incantation._

"_Bone of the father, you will resurrect your son." The grave beneath Harry's feet cracked and a white powder flew into the potion. It changed color and threw Harry's face into high relief. Ariane spotted a figure lying on the ground and moved towards it, the memory becoming more vague as she did so. It seemed that when she moved away from Harry, who had experienced the memory, the fewer the details. She suspected that if she tried to leave the graveyard she would leave the memory as well._

_She reached the fuzzy figure as the black-robed man began to shudder and shake with fear. Ariane crouched down and peered at its face, wondering who it was and how they'd been knocked out._

_It was a boy—a lovely boy, dark-haired and gray-eyed, with the sort of chiseled good looks that made girls go weak in the knees. The dark curls that crowned him were mussed and he had leaves tangled in it, and his head sat at a funny angle on his neck. The gray eyes were oddly surprised and yet unaware, peering into a void that no one could penetrate. He was dead and she knew that he was ice cold even though she couldn't feel it. His name was Cedric Diggory, and Ariane knew that she would never forget his face if she lived a thousand more years._

_At that cold moment, a bloodcurdling scream filled the air and Ariane was startled back into her own mind._

Harry was so white that he looked waxy, and this time Ariane had to startle him out of the memory by pinching him hard on the arm. His eyes seemed to snap back to reality, and he shivered, looking at her like she was a monster.

"You came back to life that way?" he asked, a troubled look in his eyes.

"I didn't ask for it," she replied, a slight edge to her voice. "I was dead and probably very happily so."

"How did Slytherin find your father? I thought you two were ba—" Harry stopped at the look on Ariane's face. She was flushed with rage, her violet eyes burning. "I didn't think you'd ever met your father," he amended.

"I haven't," she said stiffly. As an excuse to avoid both of their stares, she peered down at the notes again.

Puzzle, enigma, challenge, riddle, problem, conundrum, mystery.

Ariane frowned and squinted closer. "Harry, give me your glasses," she demanded without explanation. He handed them over warily, looking very odd without the circles around his eyes.

She used them as a magnifying glass, to make each word a bit larger. There were tiny markings beneath certain letters.

Puzzle, enigma, challenge, riddle, problem, conundrum, mystery.

On the line beneath that were more words, this time stranger still.

Acquisitiveness materialism cupidity hunger avarice insatiability covetousness acquisitiveness

The last line was one word: 'riddle?'

"Give me a pen," Ariane said, her breath coming short. How had Salazar come to hiding things so carefully in his own workshop? Ron put a pen in her hands and a small bottle of black ink and Ariane began to scribble down the letters in the order they were marked.

P-E-R-C-Y-S-E-E-S-T-R-U-T-H-A-B-O-U-T

Ron peered at it, frowned, and ran his hand under the first five letters. "Percy," he said. "Was that someone you knew?"

"I've never met anyone called Percy," Ariane said, handing Harry back his glasses.

He blinked at the letters. "Percy sees truth about," Harry said, and he exchanged a glance with Ron. Between both of them concentrating on the same thing, Ariane got a brief mental glimpse of someone red haired and tall, then it was gone.

"You two know someone named Percy?" Ariane asked curiously.

Ron made a face. "My older brother," he said with disgust. "But he's disowned himself from the family."

"Oh, well that's not him then," she said, flipping to the back of the scroll of parchment. "Unless he's about a thousand years older." She peered at a few short notes.

_Found him, the man who claims to be my father. He is tall and dark-haired, like I am, but there is something of Ariane in his face. I always thought that she was a copy of our mother, but the set of her eyes and her thinness belong to him. His Christian name he will not give, so I call him the Draconigen because I refuse to address him as my father._

"My god," she whispered. "He found my father."

"Who was he?" Harry asked, leaning in to look over her shoulder. "What's all that say?"

Ariane cleared her dry throat and began to translate the Old French aloud for their benefit. "He will not tell me from what country he hails, but he claims to be king of it. He says that I am now his only heir, since Ariane is now dead, and that I should be known as a royal bastard—or, as he put it, a half-blood prince. I admire his ambition (and would like to be able to claim the title of prince), but it is not his ambition that I need. In two days time the window for the resurrection of my dear sister will be closed, and no matter what, I will have her by my side again."

"Blimey, he was _obsessed_," Ron said, ruffling a hand through his hair so that it all stood on end. "Don't you find that a little creepy, the way all he thought about was you? It was like you were married."

"Salazar had a wife," Ariane protested. "She was quite nice."

"Is there anything more here?" Harry asked.

She looked where he pointed and flinched. "That's probably the part where he says how he killed our father."

"You don't know if he—"

"I'm here, aren't I?" Ariane sagged a little. Salazar would never had killed anyone before she died—look what he'd come to, trying to bring her to life, and he had died thinking that he'd failed. She crumpled the parchment in her hands and threw it into the Pensieve. "I don't want to know how he did it," she told them. Harry looked as though he was dying to creep over and read the discarded parchment, but he restrained himself.

Ariane began to flip through the rest of the forms, none of which interested her, until she came to the last one. It looked like it had been scratched out in a hurry, and Salazar's handwriting was sprawled over two whole feet of parchment.

By the nine fires of hell and the demons within

I curse you, GODRIC GRYFFINDOR, and all your seed

May your fields shrivel and your descendants be common

Until my sons arrive to rape your women and kill their husbands

May your daughters die in childbirth

May your sons heads be smashed by enemies

May your children's children be cursed to die

And may my children's children live to walk away

with GRYFFINDOR blood on their hands and swords.

Ariane recognized the curse: it was used most often by thieves and criminals just before they were hung and allowed to speak last words before the hangman kicked over the stool they stood on. The only differences between this one and the book version were the obvious insertion of 'Gryffindor' in the second and ninth lines, and also an alteration in the third line. 'Common' was Salazar's way of saying 'non-magical', but in the proper version of the curse it said 'barren'.

Curses on a family were not to be taken lightly. Usually they were a direct ticket to Hell because of all the innocent descendants harmed. Ariane put a hand to her forehead and rubbed her throbbing temples. There was no doubt Salazar had done this.

She didn't like the version of her brother that had been locked inside his workroom all these years.

"Hey, I think we can get out again," Ron broke into her silent reverie, tapping his watch. "Most people will be in class."

"And those that aren't in class will be outside," Harry added.

Ariane folded up the paper and nodded, still very shaken. "All right." Her voice emerged as a tiny squeak. She tucked the curse into her pocket and went towards the staircase. A figure lay there, fair-haired and small looking. Ariane jumped a foot, thinking that it was Salazar's Petrified village girl, and then remembered that they had left Tuyet lying Stunned on the floor for at least an hour.

"What're we going to do about her?" Ron asked. "Hospital Wing?"

"No, Madam Pomfrey will know she's been Stunned," Harry objected. "We could perform the countercurse but then she'd wake up and start going mad at us again."

"Let's just drag her up to the Common Room," Ron said without enthusiasm. "Maybe one of her Slytherin mates will help her."

Ariane's temper flared again. "I'm one of her Slytherin mates!" she snapped. "Look, I'll take care of it." She dragged Tuyet up into a standing position and let the taller girl fall across her shoulders. Ariane staggered but didn't fall, and the three of them started up the steps. Harry spoke the password because Ariane was still finding it hard to talk when she wasn't in a rage.

The common room was empty as Harry and Ron had predicted. Ariane staggered over to her dormitory's stairs and dumped Tuyet at the foot of them, amazed at how heavy someone who looked that thin could be. "What's the counter-jinx for this?" she asked. "I've forgotten."

"_Enervate_," Harry said. "See you around." She gave him a disbelieving look, but he either missed it or ignored it because he and Ron vanished underneath Harry's silvery cloak.

"Enervate," Ariane repeated quietly, pointing her wand at Tuyet's face. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Tuyet's slanted eyes flicked once, twice, and then fixed on Ariane. "What happened?" she asked, trying to sit up. "Ouch."

"You fell down the stairs," Ariane lied quickly. "You've been out for nearly an hour."

"Really?" Tuyet said, tipping over. Her friend caught her. "I am feeling a bit woozy."

"Let's get you to the hospital wing. I think you might have a concussion." The effort it took to lift Tuyet again made Ariane dizzy. "_I_ might have a concussion," she mumbled to herself.

"Yeah, you've got a killer bruise on your face," her load said. "What happened?"

"You fell on me."

"Did I?" Then Tuyet lapsed into silence. Ariane remembered Rowena saying that it was very important to keep head injury victims awake; otherwise they might lapse into a sleep too deep to be broken.

"Talk to me, Tuyet. About anything."

It took some prompting, but soon Tuyet began to babble. Ariane tuned most of it out as she concentrated on pulling the taller, heavier girl to the hospital wing.

"—well, I've never really liked my brother, you know," Tuyet said vaguely while Ariane was pulling her up the main steps. "He's a real jerk to most people. We play him in Quidditch in a few weeks, though."

"Really?" Ariane panted, not really attending. "Your brother?"

"His name's Zacharias, and I swear he's the shame of the family. Imagine having a brother in Hufflepuff."

"Really?"

"Yea, but like my dad's always saying 'You must use what God is smoking to further your causes'..." Tuyet giggled loudly. "I mean, 'spoken'," she whooped. Luckily this occurred right outside the hospital wing, and Madam Pomfrey came rushing out.

"Goodness, what happened to you both?"

"She fell down the stairs," Ariane said truthfully. "I think she's got a concussion."

"And you?" Madam Pomfrey touched Ariane's left temple, setting off a dull throb. "That's a very deep bruise." She whipped out her wand and poked it, and Ariane felt the throb fade into nothing.

"I was beneath her on the stairs," Ariane told her, once again totally honest. "I've got to be off to class now."

"Which class?" Madam Pomfrey asked, peering into Tuyet's hooded eyes.

"I've got Charms this afternoon." Ariane scratched at her short hair. "Is she going to be all right?"

"She'll be fine, though I don't fancy her chances at the next Quidditch match. They'll have to tie her to her broom."

"Slytherin has a match?" Draco was going to be _so _angry if Tuyet couldn't fly. As far as Ariane knew from listening to the Quidditch babble around her at lunch, Slytherin did not have a back up for the Keeper position. "When?"

"Next weekend. They'll play the winner of the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match." Madam Pomfrey lit her wand and shone it in Tuyet's eyes. Her eyes followed the light dreamily, and Madam Pomfrey nodded in approval.

"Won't she be better by then?"

Madam Pomfrey fixed Ariane with a stern gray gaze. "The brain is a complex and many-layered thing. No injury to it can be predicted. Who knows, this may have upset her balance permanently." Seeing Ariane's look of horror and misplacing it, she said, "Don't worry, Ariane, she'll probably be just fine for the match."

She left the hospital wing feeling distinctly guilty, not to mention worried that Tuyet would once again wake up hexed after Draco and Pansy found out that she'd not be able to fly next weekend. On top of all that, Salazar's curse against the Gryffindor family was still folded tightly in her pocket, and the nightmare of her brother that had been locked away in his workshop for a thousand years had come out to follow her around like a shadowy dog.

Ariane went to Charms out of a sense of duty, numb to the stares and whispers around her. She took copious notes and listened intently to everything Professor Flitwick said. Pansy's stares didn't bother her; Draco's stony silence broken by occasional malicious comments didn't even make her blink. The day passed quickly and faded into night so fast that Ariane found herself wondering how she'd gotten through the day without noticing.

She was quite shocked to run into Professor Connor on her way to her common room. The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor looked drawn and pale, her magnificent hair dull and uncombed. Despite her sickly appearance, her voice was just as snappish as ever.

"You skipped my class today, Somerled."

Ariane opened her mouth to defend herself, but Professor Connor cut her off. "I don't really care if you pass my class or not, Somerled, but you will put in the work and the time or I'll know why." She then proceeded to assign her dumbstruck student an extra two feet on vampires to go with the foot already assigned. "If you want to quit my class, please do so. Don't waste my time." Professor Connor stalked off, her hair swishing like a horse's tail. Ariane made a rude gesture at her back, and then noticed that down the hall one of the windows was beginning to glow with the faint promise of a lovely harvest moon.

A full moon.

Frozen in horror, Ariane watched as a single shaft of moonlight broke over the horizon and pinned the tall woman on the spot. It picked out all the fine hairs around her face and gave her a fluorescent halo. It also lit up the stiff, fearful look on Professor Connor's face. Her whole body began to shiver, as though her human form were rebelling the changes beginning. One white hand was visible, and it slowly began to curl in on itself until each nail became long, hooked, and gray, and fur prickled into life along her arms like Pansy when Tuyet had jinxed her. A convulsion began at the base of her spine and bent Professor Connor double, her robes ripping to reveal a ridged spine that soon disappeared beneath the ginger fur growing on her back. Another convulsion and a wolf was standing in the shreds of Professor Connor's robes, snarling and snapping. It turned towards Ariane and regarded her curiously with eyes the color of molten gold.

_Not safe! A monster!_ Disconnected thoughts raced through Ariane's head, crowned by a whining shriek that said: _Why is she in the halls?_

The werewolf pricked its ears forward. It was really a very nice-looking animal—a nice looking _monster_, Ariane corrected herself. White teeth, golden-red fur, and the gold eyes that looked nothing like a human's. It tilted its huge, magnificent head and then sat back and howled.

It was the loneliest sound Ariane had ever heard. The low, throbbing cry made all her hairs stand on end and it made her heart ache. It also made her want to run, because she didn't want that loneliness for herself. Her feet had moved about five steps when she heard another low growl behind her.

She peeked over her shoulder, so frightened that she could hardly make herself look.

There was more than one. A small sob escaped her lips as the second werewolf came out of the shadows, teeth bared.

_Author's Note: Yes, finally, I know. But it's done, thank god. School has started up once more for me, so updates will be spread out. I have all intentions of finishing Films About Ghosts, but the chapters are going to be typed four sentences at a time. My suggestion? Review and click the author alert button (if you haven't already). That way, when I update you'll know without checking the site (I hate doing that myself so I have like 25 author alerts XD). Well, that's it._


	14. The Furies

_"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 14: The Furies**

Ariane stood frozen between the two werewolves. She had thought Professor Connor was a big werewolf, but the new one was a good four inches taller at the shoulder. A part of her brain that found the situation ironic wondered if she would be able to ride him like a horse, but the rest of her brain was screaming in fear and drowned out most of the nervous giggling that was bubbling in her throat. Rummaging in her pockets to find something to defend herself with, she found only her wand, a flask that was left over from Potion class earlier that week, and the wad of parchment that was Salazar's curse upon Gryffindor. She didn't know any werewolf spells, so Ariane closed her fingers over the flask, knowing that she might as well just sit there and let it bite her.

Slowly she turned so that she could see both werewolves. The one that had been behind her was mostly silvery-gray, with a few tufts of brown hair. It moved stiffly towards her, as thought it was not quite used to its form yet. That wasn't the case with the red wolf, which had begun a leisurely pace towards her, golden eyes glittering with an animal instinct. The gray wolf made an odd strangled noise in its throat, half-growl half-yip, and the red wolf stopped and peered at him. Ariane looked at the second wolf too, wondering why he'd made that noise.

It looked at her. She had never seen such sad eyes, quiet and hazel and filled with immeasurable fear and despair. They were not the eyes of an animal, but of a man. The red werewolf, Professor Connor, did not have human eyes. Normally Connor had green eyes, a dull bottle green that somehow made her look almost pretty in her snappish way. Now they were yellow and animal, yet malicious in a way that true animals weren't.

The grey werewolf got very close to her, its strange human eyes locked on her face. It stopped a bare foot away from Ariane and stood calmly at her side as though it were a pet or a guardian. Then, very slowly, it turned to the red werewolf and growled low in its throat. Connor snarled defiantly, baring glittering white teeth, and broke into a gallop. The sight of a giant red werewolf launching itself toward her was enough to unfreeze Ariane, who turned to run. The grey wolf didn't try to stop her; on the contrary it got in Connor's way.

As Ariane sprinted back to the safety of her common room, she heard the pained cry of the second werewolf echoing after her, and she wondered if a werewolf would kill one of its own kind.

She arrived out of breath at the common room seconds later, and had to wait a few moments before attempting to speak the password. When Ariane finally had enough air in her lungs she panted 'Slatero' and entered the crowded room. Tuyet was noticeably absent because Blaise was noticeably silent, and Pansy was curled up by the fire with a copy of the Daily Prophet spread on her lap. Draco was next to her with his Transfiguration homework in front of him, a quill poised in the air as he turned to ask her something. Whatever he had been going to say was lost forever, because when his eyes fell on Ariane his mouth closed into a smug grin.

"Hello, Ariane," said Pansy with a simper that signified nothing good for her classmate. "Where've you been?"

"Well, I nearly got chewed on for skipping Professor Connor's class today," Ariane deadpanned, her red face breaking into a grin despite herself. It was too funny not to laugh, now that she was safe.

"You mean chewed out, right?" Daphne said, busy disentangling her curly hair from the hoop earrings she was wearing. "Not really chewed on?"

"Well, it is full moon," Ariane said, jumping over the back of a couch and sitting cross-legged next to Blaise. Everyone looked horrified except Pansy, who looked slightly irritated and went back to the Daily Prophet, rustling it loudly on the pretense of straightening it. A few people looked at her, and, sensing her audience, Pansy began to read the article aloud.

"Your reporter has discovered a connection between the prestigious Boy Who Lived and this girl Ariane who ought not to exist. Little does Harry Potter realize that this new friend of his claims to be a relative of You-Know-Who, and may even be passing information to him as you read this article. Though Harry Potter has had little luck with love in the past, one hopes that he will escape the grave error of falling for the temptress that claims to be Salazar Slytherin's sister." Pansy looked up at Ariane, who was numb with shock.

"Where is that? I didn't read that!" she snapped.

Pansy flipped to the first page of Rita Skeeter's article and pointed to a footnote. "Continued on pages 17 and 18. Lots of juicy tidbits on page 18." A truly evil look on her face, she continued to read. "Harry even seems to have broken away from his long-time friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley to chase this silver-haired snare of a girl, even following her to the clock tower where your reporter overheard this fascinating conversation."

Too angry even to flush, Ariane sprang off the couch and tore the paper out of Pansy's hands, wadded it, and flung it into the fire. It flared brightly, throwing Ariane's furious expression and Pansy's smug grin into sharp relief. All the Slytherins were watching them, anticipating a very good fight that would be a welcome distraction from their homework.

"Good thing that Daphne scalped you after Rita wrote that," Pansy said coolly, "otherwise she would have been able to point out how ugly you are as well. I suppose you were so hidden behind it before that she couldn't tell what you looked like."

"I suppose it's a really good thing I don't look like you, otherwise she'd be able to sense my grotesque face beneath any amount of hair." Ariane felt her cheeks beginning to go bright pink and really missed her hair. She supposed she looked quite ridiculous, a girl with tiny short curls and a glowing face. "Wait, do you really think I'm that unattractive?"

"I find you as lovely to look at as a dog's ass," Pansy smirked, "especially when you turn all red like you are now. Thinking about Harry, are you? Oh, look, she's getting redder..."

"If I'm so unattractive, then why did Draco blow you off to chase after me?" Ariane demanded. Draco stiffened on the couch, and Ariane was aware that she had been very stupid to bring him up at all. _In for the wool, in for the sheep,_ she thought, and added, "He seems to find me, a dog's ass, much more attractive then you." Daphne was looking for something to hide behind. "Has he always been of such poor taste?"

Pansy made an ugly noise and shouted a spell that Ariane didn't know, but she'd been expecting an attack after her foolish statement. "_Protego_!" Ariane shouted at the same time, whipping her wand out of her pocket, and she felt Pansy's hex skim over her mouth like a faintly grasping hand. "I'm not Tuyet," she shouted at Pansy, "and that won't work on me!"

"Speaking of Tuyet, why do you even pretend to like her? We all know that you pushed her down the stairs so that she wouldn't be able to say that she saw that you let Potter into the common room."

"How could I have pushed her down if she fell on me?" Ariane asked tersely. "Shut up, Pansy, I don't need to listen to what you have to say."

Pansy looked triumphant. "No, I think it's you who should shut up, Ariane," she said sweetly. "_Silencio semper_."

Ariane couldn't block it in time; she hadn't expected Pansy to curse her then. For a moment she thought that it hadn't hit her, but as Ariane swore at herself for letting her guard down, she became aware of a very curious sensation in her throat. It felt like a belch, but when her mouth opened a tiny cloud of white mist left it. Ariane grabbed for it and her hand went straight through it, but as it continued to flow towards Pansy Ariane became aware that she didn't want Pansy to have that white mist. Fumbling in her pockets, she pulled out the flask and shooed the mist inside it, holding her thumb over the top.

She opened her mouth again, meaning to tear strips off Pansy, but when she made to speak nothing came out. The mist in the flask turned bright red, the color of anger, but Ariane made no sound. She took her thumb off the top of the flask for a moment, and her voice came out: "YOU PUG-FACED, ENVIOUS—" and then Ariane put her thumb back over it and the voice was silenced.

Ariane was caught between outrage, fear, and amusement. She put a hand to her neck and tried to speak, but nothing happened. Her throat vibrated in all the proper places, but her voice just wasn't there. It was in the flask that Pansy was eyeing covetously.

Without thinking Ariane turned and left the common room, still clutching her bottle full of voice. Once she was out in the hallway she realized that she had just walked back into a hallway that could possibly contain two fully-grown werewolves, one of which was likely to bite her and the other which may have gotten itself ripped into little pieces by the first. She stood shivering in the damp hallway for a moment, then decided she'd rather be bitten then go back in and face Pansy again. Ariane set off with her voice in a jar and her heart in her throat.

It seemed that God had finally smiled upon Ariane, because she didn't see or hear a werewolf the whole time she wandered the halls. By nine o'clock she was getting desperate: she couldn't find the Hospital Wing or the Headmaster's office, which were her preferred destinations. She wanted her voice back and she wanted to see Pansy do slave labor. Preferably floor scrubbing or something equally hard and dirty.

Ariane passed a set of armor that looked very familiar and paused to survey her location. Certain that she was only a few floors above the hospital wing now, Ariane took a staircase down. Not only did it not lead to the hospital wing, it led to a completely unfamiliar corridor carpeted in red.

Letting out a scream of frustration that nobody heard, Ariane kicked a marble pillar and then spent a good deal of time silently cursing everything that came to mind. It was actually a relief to shout it all out, and she spent the next fifteen minutes letting her thumb off the top of the flask so that her voice came out in bursts.

"AHH—RRGH—I hate—idiots—rot in hell," the jar said, and then Ariane stuffed one of her socks into the stopper, realizing that no matter how funny she found it, the werewolves could still hear the noise and she didn't know if they were still inside. Once even the echoes of her voice had faded, Ariane's thoughts began shouting inside her silent head.

Salazar. Pansy. Her father. The Gryffindor Curse. Harry. Tuyet. The girl whom Salazar had petrified. Laramy. Ron. Professor Connor, and the unknown werewolf who had saved her life.

Completely lost and overwhelmed by her thoughts, Ariane sat down in the hallway cross-legged and cried silently, occasionally blowing her nose on the hem of her robes. To her slight disgust, her nose still made a sick, snotty noise when she blew it. She guessed she'd been there for about a half-hour when she heard footsteps from far down the hall, along with a faint mental impression.

Ariane was beginning to recognize when her mind was intruding in other's minds—and vice versa. Each person had a different sort of feeling about him or her; sometimes it felt like a color, other times like a sound or even a smell. For example, Harry's mind had a sort of dark, busy feel to it, as though someone had turned out lights in a crowded room but some light was still streaming through the windows. Ron's was more like a sort of warm scratchy feel, like wool carpeting, and Draco's mind was like a metal maze: smooth yet twisted, full of the unexpected, yet everything seemed the same. Ariane hadn't been near Hermione enough to get a feel of what her mind was like, but Ariane knew that she had never been exposed to this mind before.

It was bright, vivid blue, and it felt fast, as though it were working at speeds unheard of to mere mortals. The man—for this mind was unalterably masculine—had an electric energy buzzing about him that made Ariane feel small, pale, and stupid in comparison.

"A natural Legilimens!" Dumbledore said as he came abreast of her. "You're very subtle, I hardly noticed you reading my thoughts."

Ariane sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve again, made to tell him that Pansy had cursed her, and then realized that she couldn't tell him because Pansy had cursed her. Instead she showed him the glass bottle with her sock stuffed in the top as she stood up. Dumbledore's eyebrows contracted, then he took it from her as delicately as he could, as though it were made of butterfly wings.

"Follow me, please," Dumbledore said quite firmly, and they walked along the corridor at a brisk pace. He was very angry about something, Ariane could tell, and she didn't feel a bit guilty about ratting Pansy out. As they walked she tried out her newly named Legilimency on him, doing as Harry had described: letting her mind relax and breathing with Dumbledore until she felt a little of that sparkling blue energy. She began to concentrate on what was making him angry and came up with a vague, distorted image: a cup still full of steaming liquid, the bright white moonlight, a young man with sandy hair and a downtrodden expression. Suddenly everything vanished, replaced by a slippery mental wall that blocked out all her attempts to penetrate it.

"Though I am pleased that you've learned how to control your mind, it is considered very rude to read other's private thoughts," Dumbledore said sharply, and Ariane blushed. "I was just off to find you anyway, but you should realize that it is considered very dangerous to roam in the halls after dark."

She didn't bother trying to defend herself, there was no point or means. Instead she listened as he talked, watching his silver-white hair gleaming on his back as they walked past various torches and lamps.

"As you probably have discovered, there is a werewolf wandering the halls tonight. Professor Connor is not safe, nor is she tame." Ariane tugged his sleeve and held up two fingers to indicate the second werewolf. Dumbledore nodded slightly but didn't explain the presence of another werewolf inside Hogwarts when there was in fact only one acknowledged. "I wrote to one of my acquaintances at the Ministry of Magic about you, and he sent back a document that I'd like to have you read, if you don't mind." He passed her a lengthy scroll.

Ariane shot a frustrated look at his back, but it did no good, so she began to read. It was, to all appearances, a letter.

_Dumbledore:_

_Upon your request that I search my department for any clues about the purpose of the girl Ariane in the great scheme of time, I came upon this document from the personal records of Helga Hufflepuff. I took the liberty of translating it for you. The writing style is very distinctive, as is Helga's tendency to refer to herself in the third person. _

_I suspect that her personal scribe added certain details, such as the descriptions of Helga and Rowena, in order to make it a better story. This may have had three or more sources, judging by the references to things Salazar had done in the past and by the vivid descriptions of Rowena's advancing illness. There is enough information here to credit many authors, but it is all true as far as I can tell._

There was no doubt in Helga's mind: this was the end.

Helga was not a young woman: thick white streaks turned her red hair to a rusty iron-gray, and her jaw wasn't nearly as firm as it had been when she'd first come to Hogwarts. Deep lines carved by smiles surrounded her mouth and eyes, and her once skillful hands were veined and gnarled by arthritis. She had never been a beautiful woman, but the motherly kindness that radiated off her plump figure made people think that she was prettier than she really was. Now, however, the deep sadness in her blue-green eyes stripped all her loveliness away and left only an aging, wrinkled woman dressed in a rough black dress that would have fitted someone heavier.

The figure in the bed stirred, long eyelashes fluttering as the woman they belonged to made another effort to pull herself back from the brink. Rowena looked a great deal younger than Helga, and in fact she was only thirty-seven to Helga's fifty-one. The thick brown hair that she had taken such pride in had been shorn in an effort to stem the fever that ate away at her body, leaving only a few inches of brown waves around Rowena's deathly pale face. Her white, aristocratic complexion had the feel of a peeled apple: moist and hard. From where Helga sat she could feel the heat radiating off her friend's still form, as though Rowena had become a kiln in her final hours.

The younger woman's cracked lips parted. "Water," she whispered. "Gads, I've never been so thirsty."

Obligingly Helga reached for the water dipper and filled it, letting a few drops trickle down Rowena's throat, and then using the rest of it to sponge off her feverish face. "You've been sleeping for awhile," she said quietly.

"You're using that voice with me," Rowena lectured breathlessly. "I'm not dead yet, Helga." She attempted a weak smile, but it only opened a crack in her lip and she cringed halfheartedly. Wordlessly Helga blotted the blood with her sleeve. "How bad is it?"

"We weren't sure you'd wake up," Helga told her bluntly. "The fever looked likely to cook your brains."

"I doubt they would have been a tasty dish," Rowena made a noise that might have been a laugh, but it burbled horribly into the silence and Helga had to busy herself with the water pitcher to hide the tears that had sprung into her eyes.

Another silence stretched. Helga blotted the feverish sweat off Rowena's brow.

"Has Godric gone to find Salazar?" Rowena asked, looking back towards the head of the bed. "I thought he'd gone."

"He's gone to find him, yes," Helga said, not meeting Rowena's unsteady gaze. The truth was that Salazar had all but vanished into his workshop after his younger sister had been killed, and, after a fight with Godric about something that neither man would discuss with Rowena nor Helga, the youngest Founder had left Hogwarts for what looked like forever. "I don't know if he'll have success."

Rowena's long white fingers twitched as though they longed to twirl the ends of her hair. "I don't think he'll find him. Salazar's as good as dead."

"What makes you say that?" Helga asked sharply, taking Rowena's clammy, hot hand in hers. "Rowena, why do you say that?"

"His seven years were up before I ever got ill," she said vaguely. "The Furies came for him." Her eyelids fluttered, but Rowena managed to say awake.

"The Furies?" the older woman gasped. "I thought that they were only a legend."

Rowena shook her shorn head from side to side. "Real. Sent by the Maker to punish those who—"

"Murder," Helga whispered. "Who did Salazar kill?" She became aware that the hand she was holding onto was shaking. Rowena's teeth were chattering though she had been doused in ice-cold water, but it felt as though her body would char the sheets upon which it lay. Helga pulled another blanket over Rowena's legs, and the shivers slowed. "Who did Salazar kill, Rowena?" she asked softly.

"His father," Rowena said, her teeth rattling. "And Ariane."

If Helga hadn't been sitting she would have collapsed. As it was, she gripped the bedrail very tightly, seeing the strikingly thin and silver-haired girl crumple to the ground with an arrow stuck nearly all the way through her small ribcage. "He killed Ariane?" she asked hollowly. "Why? He loved that girl better than he loved life."

"It was an accident," Rowena gasped, one of her hands fluttering to her dry lips. "Water, please Helga. I've never been this thirsty." Obligingly Helga refilled the water dipper and held it so that Rowena could drink. "God, I wish this would end," she whispered to herself once she'd sated her thirst. There was nothing Helga could say to this.

"It was an accident? Whom was Salazar aiming for?" Helga asked casually, as though it were truly an accident in target practice. Deep inside her heart, the part that knew Salazar's true nature, she knew that Salazar had been trying to kill someone.

"Laramy," Rowena breathed, her voice so quiet that Helga had to lean in to hear it. "He wanted him dead, because Ariane loved him. The Furies didn't come for him until after he'd killed their father in an attempt to bring her back."

"Laramy...he was a student of yours, was he not?"

"Handsome fellow, had the pox when he was a child. Red hair."

Helga blinked, recalling a tall boy with a long nose. He had been apprenticed as a tanner before he'd come to Hogwarts, if her memory served her well. "He's still unmarried?"

"Foolish boy. He always clung closely to the fairy-tale perception of things."

"True love does exist, Rowena," Helga told her friend firmly, rehashing an argument that they'd had before. "I suppose that Laramy and Ariane will find each other in the next life if they were separated in this one—what?" For Rowena had begun to shake her head back and forth limply on the pillow.

"Water," she pleaded, her overlarge brown eyes unfocused. Once she had drunk, she began again. "Salazar tried to bring her back to life," she whispered. "When he left after her burial it was to find their father. He found him and killed him, but bought off the wrath of the Furies because he was using it to bring back an innocent..." Rowena trailed off, sweating profusely and tugging at the extra blanket Helga had placed over her legs.

Helga folded it down and sponged off the clammy white forehead tenderly. "Don't wear yourself out," she said quietly. "Godric will want to see you again."

"He won't get back in time," Rowena said bluntly, her normally brisk voice strangely faint. "I want to get Salazar's sins off my soul before I go."

Patting her white-red hair into place with hands that shook, Helga said calmly, "I'm listening."

"These secrets are yours now," her friend murmured. "To keep until you're dying or take them to your rest."

"I know. Tell me, Rowena." Gently she pushed back some unruly hair from Rowena's face. "Tell me."

"Salazar used his father's bones to raise Ariane from the dead," Rowena burst out, her feverish eyes tortured. "But something went wrong with the spell, and the Furies came for Salazar...Godric threw him from the school because he didn't want the Furies anywhere near Hogwarts. You know how fond Godric was of Ariane."

"I daresay he would have married her if Salazar would have let him," Helga said. "But then, I suppose, if she had to be married..."

"Godric petitioned for Ariane on Laramy's behalf." Her voice was a strangled gasp. "Salazar never forgave him for it." A single tear leaked out of Rowena's right eye, sliding over her eyelashes already glued together with sweat. "I'll never forgive myself for letting it happen."

Automatically Helga gathered up Rowena's rail-thin form and held her, letting her cry her few red-hot tears into the horrible black dress she was wearing. "It's not your fault," she said soothingly, rocking her long-time companion and friend. "Laramy wouldn't have asked for your consent." Rowena sobbed dryly, too weak to protest again Helga's 'mothering' her. "There was nothing you could have done to prevent it."

"I'll never forgive myself for being helpless, then," Rowena whispered hotly. "Those two boys need looking after. But now Salazar can't be looked after by any of us."

"What have the Furies done to him?" Helga said softly.

Rowena allowed Helga to blot her sweaty face before she struggled weakly back into bed. "They'll do to him what the law demands," she muttered under her breath. "He killed his sister. Therefore, he will be hung with weights and marched into a pool of water—"

"Where he'll be drowned until he is most certainly dead," Helga finished, shivering. "God have mercy on his soul."

"It's out of God's hands," Rowena breathed, her voice rasping. Without being asked Helga gave her more water, but Rowena could barely swallow it. The end was near, just as it had been for the village boy Rowena had nursed.

Helga had promised herself that she wouldn't cry, but in the face of her best friend's death she felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Rowena saw them. "Don't cry, Helga dear," she said with an attempt at her usual wicked grin. "I've still got one more thing to say before I drift off."

"Do you?" She didn't think there was anything more to say about Godric or Salazar.

"Yes. Laramy knows that Salazar stopped Ariane from entering the Underworld."

"I thought he brought her back to life."

"He did, but now she sleeps in her tomb, the deepest of sleeps. She's only a hairsbreadth away from death." Rowena smiled once more. "She's even closer to death than I, but the difference between us is that I am getting closer to death, while Ariane draws slowly away. It could take a hundred years for her to regain full consciousness."

Helga thought about this. "So Laramy has no hope of getting her back?"

"He does now," Rowena said. "I worked a magic on him at his request, so that he would be reincarnated with each new generation until he and Ariane were united once more."

"Rowena Ravenclaw!" Helga cried in dismay, abandoning her bedside manner. "How dare you dabble in such black arts?"

"I dare it for love," Rowena replied, the crack in her lip opening again. "I believe in true love, Helga, despite all my book learning. It defies nature and magic and sometimes even God's will, but it does exist."

"I know that! But this is your immortal soul, Rowena!"

"Laramy would have tried it himself if I had not done it for him. Then he would have been damned without ever seeing Ariane again." Her eyes darted around wildly, her face no longer sweaty, her skin so parched that all the elasticity had gone. "I'm going, Helga."

"No, more water's what you need," Helga refused to believe that Rowena could be dying, and twisted to get the water bucket. "What will happen to Laramy? He won't have all his memories when he comes back, will he?"

"No," Rowena gasped, thick red blood running from the cracks in her lip. "But he'll know Ariane. And she'll know him. And they _will_ get their chance for happiness."

_Rowena's last words were the first recorded in the Hall of Prophecy._

_They were also the first to be completely forgotten, apparently, until I found them a few days ago, after you wrote me. Concerning the girl Ariane, she is fated to find the reincarnated Laramy, and he to find her. He may not look like the Laramy she knew, and his name in all likelihood is not Laramy. If you require any additional information, please contact me. I am always happy to help._

_Augustus Croaker, Department of Mysteries_

Dumbledore stopped walking and Ariane ran into his back, feeling as cold as though she'd just come alive after her thousand years in the tomb.

Salazar had killed her. She let out a silent sob of disbelief that echoed faintly from within the jar, but it was her only outward sign of grief. Deep down, in her heart, she knew that Salazar had had something to do with it. She knew that he had wanted Laramy dead. It was the thought of her brother, lost in failure and despair, being chained to stones and wading into deeper and deeper water until his head vanished and he was pulled to the bottom, that was what made tears roll down her cheeks.

"I read the letter," Dumbledore said, his kind old face crinkled with sympathy. "I am very sorry that your brother wasn't as good a human being as you thought he was."

"So am I," Ariane whispered mutely, again the flask echoed her.

_Author's Note: Ahh, more confusing time things to deal with. Well, time has so much to do with the next couple of chapters that they'll be confusing, but not to the point that people are scratching at their heads and going 'What the hell?'. That's my job, while I'm writing. Review if you don't mind._


	15. A Snake Sheds its Skin

"_If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 15: A Snake Sheds its Skin**

Ariane left the Headmaster's office later that night with her voice, but with no desire to use it. Her face was quite pale, her eyes downcast and a little red. Her mind was ticking like the clock. In one hand she clutched several scraps of material, in the other a striped scarf in the colors of her new House.

"We do not make it a practice to move students from House to House," Dumbledore had said sternly. "In your case, however, since you were not Sorted by the Sorting Hat, we can make an exception." He reached for the tattered old hat that looked five times more ancient than he was.

"Why did you put me in Slytherin?" Ariane remembered asking him listlessly, her voice still muffled and hoarse from its trip from her body. "Because I'm Salazar's sister?"

"No," Dumbledore had sighed. "It was because Severus wanted to keep an eye on you. I must confess that I wish he had allowed himself to do a better job."

Ariane frowned slightly as she paused halfway up a flight of stairs. What on earth had Dumbledore been on about? Snape had never shown her anything but polite dislike from the moment they had met. Well, occasionally he had showered her with impolite dislike, but he had never let on that he was trying to look after her. He hadn't really saved her from Pansy's wrath, nor from her own idiocy in provoking it. Then again, maybe nobody could have prevented what had happened.

Ariane continued walking, rubbing her thumb along the warm wool scarf, wondering what the Slytherins would be whispering among themselves when she wasn't sitting with them tomorrow morning. They would probably make Pansy the victim and herself the coward—for even among Slytherins who would save their own skin first, a coward was looked down upon.

"Good evening, Ariane."

She jumped in surpirse and looked up into Professor McGonagall's stern face. The Transfiguration Professor looked both irritated and sympathetic, and her eyes kept wandering up and down the halls, as though she were waiting for someone.

"Hello," she said shyly, not sure what she should say.

"You're in my House now," she said, "and you are also under my protection. The fact that you chose to wander about looking for the Gryffindor Common Room when there is an unsafe werewolf wandering about is rather distressing to me. Do you think to prove your bravery?" Her gray eyes behind their square spectacles narrowed, surveying the slight girl before her anew.

"I forgot," Ariane said numbly. "I thought they had gone outside."

"Well, from what the Headmaster tells me your are extraordinarily lucky that Remus Lupin was at Hogwarts tonight. He's the second werewolf," McGonagall explained, seeing Ariane's confusion. "And he, also very luckily for you, remembered to take the potion that makes him safe. Professor Connor did not." Her thin mouth tightened, and it was clear she was restraining her criticisms of her fellow professor.

Ariane didn't have any response to that. She was drained emotionally and physically, and all she wanted was to go to bed and not wake up for another ten centuries. Professor McGonagall glanced down the hallway again. "Follow me." Ariane followed her up four more flights of stairs and along a very open, cheerful corridor lined with all sorts of paintings. It was in front of one of these paintings that they halted: a fat woman wearing pink satin, her bulbous face very cheerful. Ariane recognized her.

"Patience?" she asked, stunned even through all her weariness. "What're you doing here?" Godric's middle daughter, who didn't have the dark beauty of her elder sister Elaine nor the blonde charm of her younger sister Winifred, had long resigned herself to being a maiden cook. Whether she had spent more time eating or cooking was debatable, but she had always been very nice. To be truthful, Ariane had last seen Patience when she was ten and about a hundred and ninety pounds lighter, but some people are easily recognizable.

"Guarding the Gryffindor tower, dearie," she said kindly. "You'll be wanting in, then?"

"The password applies to Ariane as well," McGonagall said firmly. "It's 'scrabble'." The Fat Lady swung open obligingly, waved at Ariane as the girl stepped inside a round room that had changed very little from the last time she'd been in it. It had changed, though, when she had first stood on the ground that it was built on a thousand years before.

"_I'll put the girl's dormitories on the right," Godric said half to himself. Ariane was perched on a boulder that had not yet been removed from the grassy ground where Godric was going to build his house. "And the boy's on the left. What do you think of that?"_

"_Wouldn't it save space to have them together?" Ariane asked, picking a loose thread from the hem of her skirt. "Wouldn't it be more practical?"_

_Godric laughed heartily. "You are still too young to understand the siren call that is women to men," he muttered cryptically to himself. Ariane ignored this as she did most of the things Godric muttered about. He was always talking about men and women in ways she didn't understand. Instead she stood and jumped off the rock in one smooth motion and landed crouching in the grass. Godric's eyes followed her but he didn't make a move to stop her from jumping, as Salazar would have._

_That was probably the one thing that stopped a seven-year-old Ariane from disliking Godric entirely. He gave her some freedom to do whatever she liked._

_She pushed her thick silver plait over her shoulder and climbed up the low stone wall that marked the round boundaries, walking around and around it until she knew exactly how big around the roundhouse would be: three hundred and twenty-seven of her steps._

"_Would you like to live in my House, Ariane?" Godric asked from the center of the circle. "I think you would like the other students."_

"_I must stay with my brother," she said placidly, ignoring the panic rising. He wanted to take her away from Salazar!_

_Godric muttered to himself again, Ariane just catching it. "How could she think that she's anything like her ass of a brother?"_

"_Aren't you and Salazar friends?" she asked._

"_Yes, but I know what he is. He's an ass, stubborn and ambitious. I'm just as stubborn, but I've not got the ambition, just the courage to stand up to him. I'm more of an angry old badger."_

_This made no sense. Ariane ignored it and began once more to walk around the low wall._

Ariane blinked hard and snapped out of her memory into a new one. A cold draft crept up the back of her shorn scalp as she stood in front of an assorted crowd of Gryffindors, some her age or older, quite a few younger. They stared horribly, their eyes creeping from the hems of her robes—still trimmed in green and silver—to the top of her short cloud of curls. A look of iron dislike settled on all their faces. She was a Slytherin, and to have a Slytherin in the Gryffindor common room was nothing short of sacrilege.

"This is Ariane Somerled," Professor McGonagall said from behind Ariane, settling a firm, ringless hand on her shoulder. "When she first came to Hogwarts she was placed in Slytherin by the advice of one of the staff. Today, however, she was sorted by the Sorting hat into Gryffindor, and here she will remain until graduation. I believe her things have already been moved into the sixth-year dormitories." At this statement, two girls that Ariane recognized from her Herbology classes began to whisper to one another behind their hands. McGonagall glared and they stopped at once, but gave each other very significant looks.

"Despite her origin, I expect her to be treated the same as any other Gryffindor. Anyone who bothers her will answer to me, and if she bothers anyone she'll answer to me," McGonagall proclaimed sternly. "Good night."

Ariane felt the draft-full force as Professor McGonagall exited the common room, leaving her alone in the center of the room. Whispers began around the room until Ariane felt like a bare tree in the middle of a grassy plain, with the wind whistling around her lonely form.

"Ariane!"

She turned and saw Hermione, who had just cleared away a pile of books so that she was visible, sitting hunched over at a fireside table. Her bushy brown hair caught the firelight and for a moment she looked as warm and friendly as Helga Hufflepuff. Hermione beckoned Ariane over and she came, sitting limply in the abandoned chair next to the Gryffindor girl. The rest of the Gryffindors were still whispering, a few sneaking up to their dormitories to tell classmates already in bed that there was a _Slytherin_ in the common room. Others just stared at her until Ariane went red again and looked at the floor.

"Ignore them," Hermione instructed. "So you're a Gryffindor now?" Ariane nodded mutely, still looking at the floor and clutching her red- and gold-striped scarf in a shaking hand. "What happened?" Ariane shook her head, and, to her intense shame, blinked back tears. Hermione patted her warmly on the arm, her brown eyes wide with concern and held-back interest. "Would you like me to show you where you're sleeping?" Ariane nodded again, resolutely wiped her nose on her sleeve, and stood up with the bushy-haired prefect.

They walked towards the right-hand staircase and took it upwards, ignoring the hissing whispers from the two other girls that would be in their dormitory.

"Don't worry about Parvati and Lavender," Hermione said once they were out of earshot. "They come off as rude and gossipy but really they're quite nice. I'm sure they'll like you once they get to know you."

"I hope so," Ariane muttered dryly as they turned into the dormitory marked 'Sixth Years'. It was round and red, with thick plush carpeting and four four-poster beds with thick velvet drapes. The windows were narrow, deep set, and looked out towards the Forbidden Forest, which was rather leafless already. It was nearly October, Ariane remembered, and those trees had always lost their leaves early.

"I sleep over here," Hermione said, pointing to the bed farthest to the right, which was surrounded by a lot books and an occasional ball of yarn. "And this must be your bed because it's new." She walked over to the bed on the far left, which indeed had a small box with all of Ariane's things in it placed on the exact center of the quilt and her trunk pushed up against the foot of the bed. "Oh look, someone's brought up all your things."

Ariane reached into the box and pulled out, among other things, her school bag, books, a handful of mostly bent quills, three bottles of ink, and a smoothly carved wooden flute. She picked up the flute with trembling hands, feeling the scratches and small nicks it had picked up from its journey along the underground river and the lakebed. Raising it to her lips almost automatically, she blew lightly so that the pure note came out wispy and insubstantial, like the sigh of a ghost.

It was almost like a release, after all that time in Dumbledore's office trying not to cry, and all the Gryffindors staring at her as though she were an alien, and the fresh knowledge that the scar she bore and her death had both been caused by the one of the only two men in the world that she had loved. The only other man that she had ever loved was half-gone, trapped in a new body and she feared that she would never see him again.

She sank down on the bed and sobbed heavily, her whole body shaking. Ariane clasped her hands over her face as though she could veil her hysterics, but there wasn't any hiding from Hermione. The bushy haired girl made a sympathetic noise and sat down on the bed, patting Ariane on the shoulder.

"It must have been terrible for you," she said compassionately. "Will you be all right?"

Ariane meant to nod, but another sob bubbled out of her throat. Hermione put her arms around her and hugged her tightly. For a moment, Ariane relaxed, letting the other girl support her.

_There was a bang on the front door that shook the house. The herbs that hung drying from the rafters trembled, sending a sweet herbal scent over the family within. The whir of the spinning wheel slowed as the woman operating it stopped treading on the pedal. On the one table a wand sat—it belonged to the woman. Instinctively she reached over and swept it out of sight, behind the earthenware pots partially full of grain and wine._

_Ariane sat on a pallet of blankets, surrounded by herbs and dyes, playing a game with Salazar, who looked strangely young. He must have been barely nine years old. A young woman with a pale oval face and masses of black curls bound back with a brightly colored ribbon stood up from her spinning wheel, stilling its motion with her hand as she did so. Her face was also strangely familiar because it was quite a lot like Ariane's, thin and white and graced with wide purple eyes. Her dress, the same vivid blue as her hair ribbon, swirled around her as she strode over to her son and daughter._

"_Salazar, you must do as I say," Arsinoë ordered in a low voice. "Take Ariane and hide under the bed. I must go with these men for a short time, but I'll be back as soon as I've heard them out. Go!" She brushed a kiss across Salazar's dark and brooding forehead, smoothed Ariane's downy silver curls, and stalked over to the door._

"_Hello, good sirs," she said in musical tones. Salazar seized Ariane and pulled a woolen blanket over their heads. It was hot and close, and she struggled to get away. Salazar was seven hears older and stronger, so he held her fast._

"_You've been accused of witchcraft, Mistress Arsinoë," a rough male voice said. He sounded bashful, and well he might. Arsinoë had that effect on men of all ages, though she was nearly twenty-five and well past her prime. There were men as old as fifty and boys as young as fifteen that made a point to walk by their house and ask if Mistress Arsinoë needed anything done in hopes of winning the fair lady's favors._

"_I am no witch, sir," she said with royal dismay._

"_That's for the priest to decide, begging your pardon." Arsinoë stepped outside and closed the door._

_Salazar began to cry silently under the blanket. Ariane wiped the tears off his cheeks with her chubby two-year-old hands and kissed his cheek, as she had seen their mother do hundreds of times. He hugged her so tightly that she squeaked in dismay._

_A break in the memory, and then an ungodly scream split the air, the scream of a woman who is terrified and in pain. Interspersed with those shrieks were the low moaning howls of a boy as he fought the goodwife who held him fast, stopping him from going to the aid of his mother. Ariane sucked her thumb miserably, not understanding, one fat tear rolling down her cheek._

Ariane came to herself and jumped away from Hermione. "I'm sorry!" she cried, rubbing her face dry with her sleeve. "I'm so, so very sorry!"

Hermione was dead white. "Was that your mother?" she whispered. "Arsinoë?" She was rubbing her arms as though she were cold, though the room was warm. "Why did they kill her?"

"She was a witch," Ariane replied. "Hermione, I'm sorry."

"It's all right," she said quietly. "Harry told me that this sometimes happens when he's around you. I understand why he looked so shell-shocked after you told him about life before you came here." Hermione made to pat her on the shoulder, but apparently thought better of it and returned her hands to her lap.

"I won't let it happen again," Ariane promised, putting her things back in the box and setting it on her bedside table. "I'll be careful."

Hermione laughed. "Don't worry about it. It was rather educational, in a way." Ariane stared at her incredulously then began to giggle helplessly. She blew her nose and felt a bit better.

Apart from a few mishaps, settling in to her new House wasn't as horrible as Ariane had feared. Just as Hermione had said, Parvati and Lavender were very nice—a lot like Daphne, really. Lavender was the quieter of the two, with mouse-brown eyebrows and luminous bleached blonde hair that was fake and yet looked almost natural on her. Parvati was very pretty, but also very noisy and more than a little irritating sometimes.

For the first two weeks the only people who would sit anywhere near Ariane at the Gryffindor table were Ron, Hermione, Harry, and sometimes Ron's younger sister Ginny.

Ariane didn't mind that, but her first class with Tuyet was a blow. Tuyet didn't speak to her at all, and when they had to partner up to grade each other's vampire essays Tuyet deliberately ignored Ariane and partnered with a Ravenclaw. The rest of Slytherin House was worse. Any time Ariane passed a student in green and silver, she had to watch out. She was tripped, shoved, elbowed, hexed, hissed at, and pinched quite frequently. Only Daphne and Tuyet refrained from doing these things, and they wouldn't talk to her or make eye contact. Ariane understood their sudden change: if they showed that they still liked Ariane despite her new red and gold colors, they would be ostracized from Slytherin. She wasn't sure she could forgive them, nor was she sure if she could ever really be angry with them.

After a month, people seemed to get used to the idea that Ariane had been placed in Slytherin by mistake. She didn't attract as much negative attention in the halls or in classes, but it looked like Slytherin House would never forgive her. Snape in particular treated Ariane as badly as he treated the other Gryffindors if not worse: she had taken her place with Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom as the most loathed students in Potions class.

By the time winter had started, Ariane was comfortable among the Gryffindors. She had no close friends besides Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but she didn't mind. Her acquaintances with most of the other students suited her well, and she had enough on her plate with schoolwork and memories without a large social circle.

Another worry on Ariane's mind as December began was about the prophecy Rowena had made before she had died. "They will get their chance for happiness," Rowena had predicted, and it must be true. Ariane just wanted to know where and when she would find Laramy. She wanted to know who it would be, because Rowena had said that Laramy wouldn't look the same. What if Laramy was someone at Hogwarts? What if he was in another country? What if she couldn't find him?

A strange thing happened just before the Christmas holidays that fanned the fire of Ariane's interest. She had been studying her Herbology text before bed, sitting on her bed in her pajamas, when she felt a touch on her shoulder. Surprised, she jerked away: Ariane was reluctant to let anyone touch her after what had happened her first night in Gryffindor to Hermione. Parvati stood at the side of her bed in her pale pink nightdress, her face strangely blank.

"You'll find his love before New Years, Ariane," she said in an unreal voice, her dark eyes staring into a beyond. Ariane blinked dumbly at her like a fish. The voice that had come out of Parvati's mouth was unmistakably Rowena's.

"Parvati?" she asked helplessly. "Hello?"

The near-black eyes snapped back into focus. "Oh my god!" Parvati whispered. "Did I just prophesize something?" Her face lit up. "Oh my god! I'm really a Seer!" she cried. "What did I say?"

Ariane repeated it for her. "I don't know what it meant," she lied.

"But it's quite romantic, isn't it?" Parvati sighed. "Oh, just _wait_ until Professor Trelawney hears that I made a real prediction!" And she raced out of the room in her nightdress, positively glowing with joy.

"Hey Ariane!"

Ariane paused with her quill at the top of the list to stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas holiday. So far no one had put his or her name down; hers would be the very first. Ron was running towards her across the common room, only tripping himself twice. "What?" she asked curiously.

"We were wondering—that is to say, Harry and Hermione and me—if you wanted to come to my house for Christmas. Seeing as you haven't got any relatives or anything," Ron said awkwardly.

"And you shouldn't be all alone on Christmas," Hermione said from behind Ron.

"Would you like to come?" Ron said. "It'll be a bit crowded because all my brothers'll be there, and loud—"

"I'd love to!" Ariane exclaimed, barely restraining herself from hugging him. "Thank you so much."

Ron's ears went pink and he muttered something about how it wasn't any trouble as he extricated himself from her grip. Harry grinned at Ron's embarrassment and Hermione smiled in a way that made Ariane sure that she was the one who had suggested Ron invite her in the first place.

"But I haven't got you all any presents!" Ariane remembered.

"It's all right," Hermione reassured her, "We're off to Hogsmeade this weekend, you can get some things there."

_Author's Note: Ha it lives. That excites me terribly. Not that you could tell by my punctuation. Chapter 16 was actually completed before I finished this chapter and is being hacked to bits by my editor as I type this. This chapter did not go through the usual editing process that most of my chapters go though, so if there are any really grievous errors I hope you'll let them slide. Chapter 16 should be up in less than a week._

_As always, reviews are my candy. Please review._


	16. The Best Christmas Present

"_If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 16: The Best Christmas Present**

Ariane was a bundle of nerves by the time she got off the train at Platform 9¾, full of thoughts about what Ron's family would think of her. She wasn't sure that Ron had bothered to tell his parents that he was bringing home another person who they had never met. She didn't even know if his parents would like the presents she had picked out for them with Hermione's help: a bright red box of tiny plastic cubes that interlocked called 'Legos' for the father and several skeins of very soft wool for Ron's mother. Her trunk was full of candy for Harry, Ron, and all of Ron's brothers, and on the sly Ariane had bought a very nice used set of books about Animagi, a topic she knew Hermione was keen on.

She needn't have worried. Mrs. Weasley wished her an exuberant Happy Christmas and remarked that Ron had failed to mention how very pretty she was, and Mr. Weasley was a bit like a taller, balder, more serious version of Ron in an equally worn maroon sweater. He shook her hand with a grin, and then they all loaded into a dilapidated van that held all of them (Ariane, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Ron's brothers Bill and Charlie) and their trunks and animals with no trouble due to a lot of spells.

Ariane had never been in a car before, and thus had never seen how people drove these thousand-pound constructions so haphazardly. After five minutes of imagined near-misses and really near-missed, Ariane put her head between her knees so that she wouldn't have to watch.

"I didn't realize your father got a new car," Harry whispered to Ron behind her. "How did he manage it?"

"Got it for free," Ron replied. "Didn't run at all when he dragged it into the yard. He's been working on it like mad."

"It needs a new muffler," Harry observed. Ariane didn't know what a muffler was, but she suspected that the lack of a good one was what made the van sound like a growling animal. It may have just been the light, but Ariane could have sworn that the van did a complete 360-degree turn. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

Ginny leaned over next to her. "It's alright, we're nearly home," she said reassuringly, then sat back so that she wouldn't get whiplash as Mr. Weasley fought with the old vehicle.

To occupy herself, Ariane listened to the whispered conversations going on behind her and in the front seats.

Behind her, Hermione, Ron, and Harry were discussing someone she'd never met.

"—surely he'll come for Christmas, since he's realized that Fudge was wrong the whole time," Hermione whispered soothingly.

"You don't know him. I think he'd rather drink bubotuber pus than admit he was wrong," Ron lamented. "I don't know. George was right. We're well shut of him."

"He's still your brother," Hermione lectured him in an undertone.

"Your mum still thinks he's coming?" Harry asked quietly.

"She's made him a sweater and everything."

"But did Percy send her a letter or something? To let her know if he's coming or not?"

"Nothing. She still thinks he'll come," Ron grumbled.

Ariane lurched forward as Mr. Weasley turned right very quickly and caught the end of a worried conversation between Mrs. Weasley and Bill, Ron's eldest brother.

"—He's not still depressed about Sirius, is he?" Bill asked, forehead furrowed.

"No, the dear, he's still very sad if anyone mentions his name, but he's not in that state he was last summer," Mrs. Weasley replied with a fond glance over her shoulder. "When Ron asked me if he could invite that lovely little girl home for Christmas I thought he was doing it on Harry's behalf, but he seems to treat her just like Hermione."

"Mum," Bill warned, "Don't meddle. It never comes to any good."

Ariane felt like adding that she was hardly little and nearly a whole inch taller than Harry, but it would mean that they would realize she could hear everything they were saying. She didn't want to start her holiday with the Weasley's branded as an eavesdropper.

The van rumbled up an unpaved road and Ariane sat up, risking a look around her. The Weasley house lay in front of her, a jumble of rooms piled around and on top of each other like building blocks, with several chimneys perched crookedly on various rooftops. It looked like a picture, and Ariane told Ginny so. "It's charming," she said enthusiastically.

Ginny made a face. "You probably won't think it's so charming after spending a week living in it. It's a mad old house."

"At least it isn't boring," Ariane responded fairly. "Too much peace and quiet could drive a person insane."

It was probably this attitude that held Ariane together through the next two days. The Weasley house was full to the brim and couldn't have held any more human interaction without someone taking out a wall. She met Ron's twin brothers for the first time the day after her arrival and couldn't tell them apart at all; on their account she spent a full five minutes completely immobile thanks to a Paralyzing Pastille that nobody had told her about. Fred or George apologized profusely for it, but it was clear that they had run out of test subjects in their family. Ariane didn't touch anything she hadn't served herself after that.

By Christmas Eve, the house was groaning at the seams with friends and family. Ariane shared a small room with Ginny, Hermione, and occasionally Tonks and considered that her most private time of day, because after going downstairs she was surrounded by eight Weasleys, Hermione, Harry, Remus Lupin (who was very nice despite his lycanthropy), a few Aurors that dropped by after their shifts at work, Professor McGonagall (though she didn't stay long), Charlie's wife Aurelia and one-year-old son, Jerome; a smelly old crook by the name of Mundungus, some friends of the family that Ariane didn't know by name, and once, very briefly, Professor Snape. He hadn't stayed long enough to shake the snow off his coat, but his presence seemed to be peculiarly significant to the Weasleys.

"It's nearly as bad as having Malfoy here, perched next to the Christmas tree," Ron said later that day. He, Hermione, Harry, and Ariane were keeping a collective eye on Jerome, who had a knack for eating the most unusual and hazardous things within reach. Jerome was very loud, very cute, and very redheaded, and his favorite thing to try and bite was Crookshanks' long bushy tail.

"What makes your family hate the Malfoys so much?" Ariane asked. "I mean, I know that Draco is a posh git, but what about the rest of the family?"

"Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater," Harry told her, "And Narcissa is as good as one. They have a grudge against the Weasleys because they aren't trying to stamp out Muggles."

Ariane rolled her eyes. "A whole family of posh gits." Her fingers twined in her short hair. It had grown from her awful pixie cut to an odd, earlobe-length mop of silver curls that made her look like a sheepdog. Jerome took notice and tried to grab a chunk of it, but Ron foiled him.

"So who's actually coming for Christmas?" Hermione asked Ron, carefully pulling her own hair out of Jerome's reach. "Everyone who's here today?"

"Mostly," Ron replied. "I think most of the Order—" he broke off and shot a look at Ariane.

"I know what it is," Ariane told him in a bored tone, "But I've kept it to myself."

"Which one of us did you lift it off of?" Harry asked, giving her a piercing look that she avoided.

"It was an accident," she muttered. "I was taking notes in Transfiguration and it just slipped in." She shot Hermione an apologetic glance.

"It's all right, since it's you," Hermione reassured her. "And since you weren't really trying to snoop—unlike some people—it's perfectly fine." She raised her eyebrows at Harry, who had the grace to look ashamed.

"What were you snooping for?" Ariane asked him curiously. When he didn't answer right away, she applied some mental pressure.

He glared at her. "Don't _do_ that," he complained. "I was trying to see what they wanted for Christmas."

Ariane laughed aloud, which made Harry throw one of Mrs. Weasley's knitted pillow shams at her. She ducked and it hit Nymphadora Tonks in the back of the head, which launched a short and furious pillow fight that ended when Mrs. Weasley shrieked at them all from the kitchen. There was no fear that she would reach them through the crowded living room, but in the interest of a happy Christmas they decided to stop.

Giggling (or, in Harry and Ron's case, snickering), the four of them exchanged gift ideas for the more obscure members of the household (nobody really knew what to get for Fred or George, and Ariane suspected that they would receive enough candy that Christmas to open a sweets shop). It was idyllic until someone realized that there was always an Auror posted outside the Burrow to make sure that no Death Eaters joined the Christmas party.

Ariane knew by the expression on Harry's face that he blamed himself for bringing trouble to his friend's family, but she couldn't really say anything—Harry would probably accuse her of reading his mind. She shrugged it off and hoped that Harry would stop looking so troubled sooner rather than later.

Ariane had a nightmare that night. She was running through a forest in the dark of night, branches tearing at her arms and clothes, and she could hear the people—or creatures—chasing her. They were breathing heavily and harshly, like beasts, and sometimes when she glimpsed them in her frequent looks behind her they looked like they had horns.

She remembered the legend of the Minotaur and ran faster, her heart beating too furiously, dripping with icy sweat that burned her cuts and scrapes. Her pursuers increase their speed too, until one of them was running alongside her easily, watching her from within a cowl, faceless and cold. Ariane gasped for breath and lengthened her stride again.

Something behind her screamed long and shrill, like a dying animal, and Ariane sat dead upright in bed, her short curls absolutely soaked with sweat, her breath coming raggedly as though she had really been running. "It was a dream," she murmured to herself in the dark. "Just a dream."

But she had never had ordinary dreams, not since she'd been brought back from the dead. She shivered.

"Only a dream," she told herself firmly. Ariane punched her pillow and lay back down, but it was a long time before she slept again.

Christmas dawned bright and crisply cold. A foot-thick layer of snow greeted Ariane outside Ginny's window when she ran to it. From the floor above she heard Jerome's already-unmistakable morning noises, along with some thick grunts from Charlie as he attended to his son.

"Happy Christmas!" she called into Hermione's ear, then pounced on Ginny's feet.

"Damn it, Ariane, open your presents and leave us alone," Ginny moaned into her pillow, but she sat up right away and surveyed her presents (and Ariane's) with a critical eye. "I think Mum may have found the time to knit you a Weasley sweater."

Ariane crept back onto her bed (there wasn't enough floor space to stand comfortably). The biggest, bulkiest package was indeed from Mrs. Weasley, and it was a long scarf knitted in all sorts of colors, predominantly green and red. Ariane wrapped it around her head and shoulders and found it warm and not at all scratchy. She received candy from Ron; a book entitled _Occlumency and Legilimency for Practical Purposes_ from Harry, and a stack of wizard comic books from Tuyet that must have come in the night. Daphne had given her a small bottle of petal-pink nail polish, but a larger and more mysterious bottle came from Hermione, Fred, and George. Surprised to see the strange combination of names on the gift tag, Ariane asked Hermione, "What's this?"

"You have to drink it and see," Hermione said with a mysterious grin. "Fred and George invented it, and I bought some specially made for you."

"I made a personal vow never to eat or drink anything from Fred and George after my stint as statuary," Ariane replied, looking at the liquid inside the blue bottle with misgivings.

"It's not from Fred and George, it's from me. And Ginny, technically, but I forgot to put her name on the tag." Hermione unwrapped the books on Animagi and squealed. "Excellent! Thanks Ariane!"

"You're quite welcome," she replied.

Ginny pulled a thick blue sweater over her head, shaking her red hair out over the collar. "I see that Mum has once again captured bitter irony with knitting. Nice scarf, Ariane." They shared a laugh over the scarf, which did indeed point out Ariane's switch from Slytherin to Gryffindor.

"I will get both of you if this gives me boils or something foul," Ariane swore, then uncorked the little flagon and downed it. It tasted pleasantly of strawberries, but had no effect as far as Ariane could see. She flexed her fingers to make sure she wasn't freezing up or turning funny colors, then felt her face to check for boils. Hermione and Ginny were watching her closely as well.

"Nothing's happening," Ariane said after a minute. Ginny's face suddenly contorted as though she were trying not to laugh, and Hermione's eyes widened appreciatively. "What?" Ariane demanded. "What's happening?" She felt her face once more, up to the headband she used to keep her short curls out of her face, and found—_hair_. And lots of it.

She vaulted off her camp bed in a single spectacular leap that shook the floor and planted herself in front of Ginny's mirror. To her delight, the curls that a minute ago had barely reached her chin hung in silver spirals to her shoulders. And they were still growing, curving down like staircases, helixes and double helixes of hair. When the growth slowed and stopped a minute later, Ariane once more possessed silver curls down to her elbows.

Hermione squeaked in surprise as Ariane, who usually avoided physical contact, tackled her in a massive bear hug. "Thank you so much," Ariane told her. "This has got to be the best Christmas present I've ever gotten."

"We debated getting you a wig," Ginny said dryly. "I had my vote in for something floor-length and jet black."

"Oh, shut up Ginny, I'll hug you too," Ariane giggled, frog-hopping over to Ginny's bed and knocking her over in her glee. "I'm never ever cutting my hair again!"

_Which,_ she decided after trying to put it up without success, _might have been a stupid thing to promise_. Frustrated with her lack of hair-styling abilities, Ariane braided her hair and tied it off with a length of ribbon from Mrs. Weasley's gift. Hermione said it looked festive; Ginny said that it made Ariane look like a Puritan. Some explanation was required as to what a Puritan was, but Ariane had to agree with Ginny in the end, and was feeling quite self-conscious by the time the three girls made it downstairs to breakfast.

"Happy Christmas!"

"Good Lord, where did you get that _hair_ Ariane?"

"She looks female! Halleluiah!"

"Fred!"

"I'm not Fred, Mum."

"George!"

"Mum!"

"Does the jumper fit all right, Ginny?"

"It fits perfectly. Thanks Mum."

"You're very welcome, dear. Arthur, put those away."

"I should tell you, Molly, these Legos things are brilliant."

"Arthur!"

"Molly!"

"Charlie, watch out!"

"Get that thing away from Jerome!"

"Happy Christmas!"

"I'm hungry."

"Me too."

"We're all hungry, so stop chatting and sit down!"

"Hullo, have I missed anything?"

"Tonks!"

"Aurelia! I haven't seen you in hours!"

"Happy Christmas!"

"Oy Tonks, is Kingsley coming?"

"I don't know, he might be working. Remus, how are you?"

"Very well, thanks."

"Moon not troubling you?"

"Not for another eight days or so."

"Angharad isn't coming, is she?"

"Ye gods, I hope not. She's a step below Satan."

"Ron!"

"Hermione, it's true."

"Watch it, Ginny!"

"Bill, watch where you're shoving plates!"

"Catch him!"

"Gotcha! Jerome, go sit with your dad."

"Thanks Ariane."

"No disturbances of an unnatural sort, are there?"

"Happy Christmas to you too, Alastor."

"Ha! That's what you may think, but in the past I—"

"All right everyone, find a seat or prop yourself against the wall."

"Yes, here comes Molly's excellent breakfast."

"Finally!"

"Ron!"

"Er...am I late?"

A shocked silence spiraled as every one of the people crowded into the kitchen turned to stare dumbly at the young man who had just come in through the front door. He was tall, like Bill and Ron; with a darker version of red hair that was more like Ginny's than anyone else's. His hair was curly like Charlie's, and the glasses that perched on his nose were nearly identical to his father's. The sweater he wore under his coat was unmistakably a Molly Weasley creation, and his long, freckly arms were full of neatly wrapped presents. He was clearly a Weasley, but something about how he held himself was unlike the rest of his family.

"Percy?" Mrs. Weasley whispered faintly.

It was a very awkward moment. Ariane got a strong impression that Percy had done something to make himself unwelcome in this cheery household, though she couldn't imagine what it could be.

"Hello," Percy replied.

"What are you doing here?" asked Fred in a rude tone. Mrs. Weasley shot him a look but Fred squared his shoulders stubbornly.

"I was given the day off work," Percy returned just as obstinately, "and I guess I've finally wised up that Christmas is supposed to be about family." He shifted uncomfortably and one of the small packages tumbled off the top of his armful. Aurelia, used to Jerome's habits of flinging things around, caught it expertly. She peered at the long package without any sign of discomfort. "It's for you two," she told the twins, her pale face expressionless as she tossed it down the table.

George caught it and glared at the tag, then at Percy. "Don't try—"

"I'm not trying to buy you off," announced Percy patiently. "Open it." A small smile flickered around his too-serious face.

Still looking irritable, George rippled off the paper and unfolded the envelope inside. "Hey!" he half-shouted in surprise. "These are blank patents!"

"What on earth for?" Mrs. Weasley asked Percy.

"For their inventions—the joke stuff. Other manufacturers will copy it if it isn't patented."

Fred counted through the sheets of paper. "Five blank patents. That's worth at least fifty Galleons," he stated expertly.

A silence stretched, as though Percy were waiting for thanks, but just when it looked as though the twins would thank him he turned to the other members of his family and handed things out. The largest (and most oddly shaped) package went to Mr. Weasley, the second largest went to Ron, and a round, soft package was passed all the way back to Mrs. Weasley. Bill and Charlie were a bit warmer to Percy than the rest of the family and took their gifts with smiles and thanks.

Mr. Weasley held up a large metal object that looked far too oddly shaped to be any use to anyone. "What's this?" he asked his son.

"A new muffler for your car, Dad," Percy called down the table. Mrs. Weasley was sitting in a kitchen chair with what looked like her first set of brand new robes in years and tears in her eyes. Ron had just unwrapped a sleek black box with the words 'Broom Care Kit' stamped in smart silver print on the side. He was apparently beyond words. Of the family, Ginny was the only one who hadn't gotten a gift from Percy. She looked undecided about her estranged brother's new attitude.

"Hold on a moment," Percy murmured to Ginny. Fishing in the pockets of his overcoat, he pulled out what appeared to be a handful of cotton batting. It sat motionless in the palm of his hand for a moment, then a bright pink paw stretched out and a moment later a tiny white kitten stood yawning on Percy's hand.

Ginny melted entirely. Ariane had known that she had a soft spot for cats of all sorts, but she hadn't realized how much Ginny adored kittens until then. Within minutes she had christened the kitten Rupert and it had adopted her. It curled up in her lap and went to sleep, its miniscule pink claws kneading her trousers contentedly.

"My goodness, the food will be stone cold!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed suddenly, jumping up and rushing towards the stove. Tonks looked utterly horrorstruck. She'd been holding herself back for ages, waiting to eat but at the same time realizing the moment happening between Percy and his family.

"Sit down, Percy," Mr. Weasley ordered matter-of-factly. He might as well have said 'apology accepted'. Percy squeezed in between Aurelia and Bill and everyone started passing plates and baskets full of food that, despite the delay, was steaming hot and looked excellent. Ariane helped herself to toast, jam, and some sort of sweet roll. Ginny and Hermione spent ten minutes picking apart the pomegranate that Hermione had gotten for Christmas from her former boyfriend, Krum.

Ariane tried a pomegranate seed and made a face. "It's so sour!" she coughed, spiting the seed into a napkin. "Disgusting." Hermione and Ginny laughed.

Percy, who until that moment hadn't really seen Ariane, blinked across the table at her. "Do I know you?" he asked, passing a dish of baked apples to Charlie.

"I doubt it," Ariane said frankly. "I've only just moved here."

"To Hogwarts?"

"Yes."

"What year are you in?" Percy queried. "Sixth? Which House?"

"Yes. I'm in Gryffindor now, but I was in Slytherin before then because"—she caught herself before she could say 'because my brother was Salazar Slytherin'—"one of the teachers thought I would make a good Slytherin."

Percy's eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. "Apparently you were a terrible Slytherin." The light reflected off his glasses, hiding his eyes. Ariane suddenly wanted to know what color they were very much.

"Yes, I think I may have been the worst one to date," she replied lightly, piling jam on her toast and sprinkling sugar on top of it until it was gritty.

She took a huge bite just as Percy asked, "What's your name? I didn't catch it." Ariane contemplated her possible courses of action: spitting the toast onto the floor or into a napkin—no napkins in sight—or swallowing it and possibly choking to death on the bite.

Ginny took a break from grinning helplessly at Rupert and said, in a voice that didn't entirely lack irritation with her older brother, "It's Ariane, Percy."

Looking back, it was at this moment that everything changed.

Percy suddenly had an epiphany. When he had come into the crowded, noisy kitchen full of heat and talk and motion, it had taken him only a second to see the slight fair girl seated at the end of the table next to his sister. At first he had thought that it was simply the contrast between Ginny and this strange young woman that had made him notice her: Ginny was short and sturdy with hair like dark copper wire, where the girl was taller, slimmer, and had silky-looking silver hair. When he'd sat down, he'd had the childish urge to reach out and pet it, as Charlie's son wanted to do, to see if it felt as nice as it looked. The more he watched her, out of the corners of his eyes or directly, he felt as though he knew her. When she tasted the tart pomegranate seeds, he had _known _that she wouldn't like it, because she hated sour things. How did he know that? Percy could have bet his job at the Ministry that he'd never met anyone with that sort of hair before, or that peculiar way of smiling and darting her eyes to one side—but he did know her, as though he had been a very small child when they'd last met. Percy would have recognized that smile anywhere. But then Ginny had done something extraordinary. She had stopped cooing over the kitten—Rupert; she'd named it Rupert—and spoken the girl's name.

Ariane.

It was though he were remembering a dream all in a flash, another life rushing blurrily before his eyes as though the one he had lived up until that point was dying. Percy didn't much care if it did disappear forever, because he knew that he'd been living his whole life looking for Ariane. And here she was, sitting across from him in his mother's kitchen eating what seemed to be sugar lumps and bread, her hair falling out of her braid to spiral around her face and hang in her eyes—purple velvet eyes that he would gladly drown in given the chance.

Percy shook himself and pushed his glasses up his nose. He was a rational person; he had always thought that love at first sight was the most ridiculous fantasy invention every dredged into existence by corny romance novels. This wasn't really love at first sight, it was more abstract than that. Percy almost thought that he might have _always _loved her; from the moment he'd had clear, comprehensible feelings. The problem with that love was that it had never had an object, and he'd been searching twenty years of life (or was it longer? It felt like an eternity) for the object of his affections. And here she was, a few feet away, chatting animatedly with Aurelia, smiling that close-lipped, darting smile.

But—and now the thought hit him like a sack of wet cement—did she love _him_? Percy's heart, which he had thought was paralyzed by work and school and rules, twisted painfully in his chest. He actually rubbed his ribs as though he could sooth a hurt that wasn't physical.

_God_, he thought_, if she doesn't love me—I might die._ That idea was so hopelessly melodramatic that he nearly snorted aloud. Percy was not at all melodramatic, if anything he thought of himself as a bit serious. The thought of not being loved in return was enough to make him want to be corny and thespian, to quote suicide speeches and Shakespeare. It scared him more than a little, but he relished the feeling of risk. That emotion, risk-taking, was at least something he'd done before.

"Percy, are you feeling all right?" his mother asked from down the table. "You look a bit flushed."

"Bit of heartburn," Percy said, and laughed quietly to himself. If they only knew what had caused the burning in his heart. Finding Ariane was without a doubt the best Christmas present he'd ever had.

Ariane, however, had not had any such revelation. She had, of course, noticed that Percy was looking at her when he didn't think she was looking at him. And she had noticed that he was behaving rather strangely, as though he were having a passionate internal argument with himself. A thinly veiled red flush kept creeping up under his glasses, and then vanishing slowly, and occasionally one of his hands would make a sharp movement, as though he were physically punctuating his mental conversation.

Ginny reluctantly agreed to let Ariane hold Rupert. He was a feather's weight in her hands, and only when she ran her forefinger down his back did she feel the bones that must support that amazing growth of white fur. Rupert purred noisily and nudged her hand with a pale pink nose, his fluffy tail waving high in the air. Ginny cooed at him besottedly. Ariane barely suppressed an eye roll. She liked cats quite a lot, but she didn't lose her head completely like some people—Hermione or Ginny, for example.

Across the table, Percy's face echoed her thoughts almost exactly. Still turned towards Ginny in a display of attention, Ariane glanced sidelong at Percy and smiled companionably.

The flush returned under the rims of his glasses, worse than ever. It highlighted all his orangey freckles, and as she continued to look at him she saw a tiny round scar on the bridge of his nose, half hidden under the nosepiece of his glasses—a nose rather like Ron's, but Percy's was only a little long, where as Ron's was nearly a probe. The scar looked especially white when his face was so red. In fact, he had several of the miniscule round scars on his face, invisible except when he was blushing.

BAM.

Ariane tipped off the bench she'd been sitting on and hit the floor with a smack that shook the house. Ginny shrieked and grabbed Rupert away from her, and Harry and Hermione helped her up. Ariane could see them laughing, but it was like someone had turned the sound off inside her head. For one blinding moment she realized something she'd suspected was true.

And then her mind went utterly blank for an instant. For a terrifying moment it was just as though she'd reawakened in her tomb and was just rediscovering the sensation of breathing. White fog spiraled behind her eyelids and filled her brain, leaving nothingness.

"Ariane, you must be dead clumsy," Harry said, pinching her hard on the arm where no one would see. The sharp pain and the familiar voice pulled her back into the present day.

"I don't know what it was," she replied truthfully. "I guess I was halfway to an epiphany and got lost." Ariane picked up her toast and peered across at Percy and Charlie. "Sorry about that. You two are brothers, then? Who's older?"

Percy tried not to look too disappointed. She didn't recognize him after all, even though he had been so sure that she had noticed him in the same way he had noticed her. Damn it all.

Well, she didn't recognize him _yet_. Percy dug into a pile of potatoes with renewed energy. He would just have to give her another couple of chances, that was all.

_Author's Note: Aha! Yes, Laramy has been revealed—but Ariane doesn't recognize him yet. Curiouser and curiouser. Chapter 17 is currently...er...not yet started, really right now it's just a fragile shell of ideas with no filler. So the next update should be in a couple weeks, barring illness, writers block, and excessive school projects. Review if you read._

_PS. Nestle, your review made me smile. Brightened a rainy Saturday. The song is called 'Mrs. Potter's Lullaby' and it's not particularly well known. It should be on the Counting Crows CD This Desert Life, but it's fairly easy to find if that's not one of the CD's you've got._


	17. Fireside Chats

"_If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."_

Films About Ghosts 

**Chapter 17:**

Branches tore at her clothes as she ran: stupid clothes for running, a long dress and a bodice that was too tight to breathe properly in. Sharp pains flared on her scalp when her long hair got snagged on branches, but she couldn't stop running. If she stopped, they would catch her.

Abruptly Ariane became aware of someone else running alongside her, about ten feet away. He or she was taller, had longer legs, and they couldn't have been running flat out or they would have outstripped Ariane easily. Were they waiting for her or playing with her? She tried to look through the brush and see their face, but it was no good: she couldn't watch the other person and keeping running as fast as she had to. Ariane gasped another ragged breath and pushed herself harder. Her whole lower body felt numb; she couldn't run this way for much longer.

There was a ghastly scream, the same horrible dying-animal scream Ariane had heard before, but this time it had words:

"Don't take me! I didn't do it! I didn't kill him! Oh God, be merciful!"

Something that wasn't human laughed, and the scream began again, longer than before. Ariane ran faster than she had ever known she could, aware that now there were people coming up behind her in the woods. Her face burnt as sweat ran through her scratches.

A thought jolted through her head: Where was Harry?

Ariane sat up in bed, shaking ferociously. She felt as though she were going to be sick, and icy sweat had soaked her nightshirt to her body. Gulping for air, she staggered over to the window and opened it outwards, feeling the freezing air bathe her sweaty face and fill her burning lungs. She couldn't deal with these nightmares, not when she didn't know if they were really from her past or not.

It was very early in the morning or very late at night. The sky was pitch black except for a tiny strip of dark violet along the eastern horizon where, in several hours, the sun would make an appearance. Ariane closed the window, feeling much better, and pressed her sweaty, matted hair away from her face. She avoided her rumpled bed and instead grabbed a comb from Ginny's night table, meaning to go downstairs and sit by the fire and think a bit while she untangled her hair. Silently Ariane pulled on a pair of trousers under her nightshirt (who's they were, nobody knew—the three girls had spent nearly all the Christmas holiday thus far wandering about in one another's clothing) and crept down the creaking stairs.

The living room/kitchen/dining room downstairs of the Burrow were fairly deserted: only one person was sleeping down here because a lot of people had gone to stay with their relatives Christmas evening. Ariane peered down at the person curled in the old armchair and realized that it was Percy; the brother that Ron had thought wouldn't show up for Christmas. From the brief, mostly negative sentiments from other Weasleys and Harry, Ariane knew that Percy was quite ambitious and a workaholic.

He didn't look like such a workaholic when he was tucked in an old quilt, his horn-rimmed glasses pushed onto his forehead because he'd forgotten to take them off before going to sleep. He looked much younger without his glasses on, and much less serious when he was asleep. The nosepiece was digging into his face just beneath his dark red curls. Ariane tucked the comb into her back pocket and reached forward to take off his glasses without really considering her actions.

Percy awoke with a start when her fingers brushed his temples, unfolding his long legs and arms all at once and nearly knocking himself out of the chair. "Who's there?" he asked in a panicked voice, hunting about blindly for the glasses that Ariane held in her hands.

"Here," she said, mortified, her face burning scarlet. Ariane wouldn't have been surprised if she were glowing in the dark. "I'm sorry, they just looked so uncomfortable."

Percy took them uncertainly from her hands, his bluish eyes unfocused. "Eh? What's that?" he queried, politely confused.

"Your glasses, they were digging in to your face. I didn't mean to wake you," Ariane apologized. "I'm Ariane, by the way. You met me—"

"Yesterday, yes, I know. Why are you awake?" Percy made an effort to smooth his sleep-riled hair and lifted his glasses again to scrub at his eyes. "What time is it?"

"It's early," Ariane told him. "And I'm awake...well, because I woke up."

Even in the dark, Percy looked skeptical. He straightened the neck of his sweater and stretched his arms out, working out the kinks. Though he was obviously a bookish type, there were still lean muscles in his forearms that stretched fascinatingly. He looked strong. Ariane realized that she was staring and looked away, digging the comb out of her pocket so that she could begin untangling her hair. She could feel Percy watching her as she crossed to the raised brick hearth and arranged herself on it, pulling a section of silver curls over her shoulder to start on.

"Was it a nightmare?" Percy asked.

Ariane started and accidentally pulled hard on a knot. "Ouch! Well, to be honest, it was," she confessed. "I have them a lot, so it's not really a big deal."

"Oh. What was it about?" he inquired, pulling his legs onto the chair so that he could sit cross-legged. "Falling?"

She pursed her lips and shook her head, contemplating whether she should tell him the truth or not. Though they didn't seem to have problems talking to one another, Ariane still realized that she knew very little of Percy. Maybe it was because it was so dark, and she couldn't really see his face in the dim firelight, but Ariane told him.

"I have dreams that I'm running," she began. "Through a wood. I don't know if someone's chasing me—sometimes there are people with hoods on, sometimes not—and there's someone else running next to me. I don't know if I'm running away from the hooded people or from the people behind." She paused, the comb stuck in a tangle.

"Go on," Percy said in a low voice, clearly fascinated.

"Behind me—I don't know what's happening. There's a man, and he's screaming horribly. It's like the noise a dying animal makes, like a rabbit when a hawk comes. Almost a squeal." Ariane shivered, lost in the remembered sound. "He's begging not to be taken."

"Taken by who?"

"I haven't got an idea," she told him, jerking the comb to the ends of her hair. "Damn it all. Sorry."

"Here," Percy said, unfolding his legs and coming over to her. "Let me help."

She paused uncertainly. It was one thing to let Hermione or Harry touch her, they understood what might happen if they did. It was another thing to let some other strange boy—young man, really—sit close and comb her hair. What if he picked up a memory? Would she be able to explain it to him? Another thought, so random that Ariane couldn't believe it even occurred to her, crossed her mind: what if she drove him away? She wanted to get to know Percy more than she'd ever wanted to know anyone before. Anyone except—but no, that wasn't possible.

Percy misunderstood her hesitation. "It's all right," he reassured her. "I used to help Ginny with hers when she was younger. I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself."

His pompous tone made her laugh, and that if nothing else prompted her to hand over the comb to him. He sat down behind her and began to gently work the teeth of the comb through her sleep-matted hair. Percy hadn't been lying: he was good at combing hair. It didn't hurt at all. Ariane relaxed.

Meanwhile, Percy was absolutely thrilled, though he took great pains to conceal it. He was sitting next to her, he was touching that gorgeous hair—not so gorgeous now, because she had managed to twirl it into all sorts of impossible knots—he was talking to her! If only she would turn around and say—maybe with one of those lovely smiles—"Percy, I love you," he thought he might be able to die happy.

She turned her head so that he could see her delicate profile and her long eyelashes, highlighted by the fire. "What is it you do, Percy?" she asked. "I know that you work at the Ministry, but that's rather a broad scope of careers." A shadow of a smile flickered across her mouth, though her eyes were still looking into the distance.

"Right now I'm an assistant to the Minister of Magic," Percy began, and then paused. If anyone else had asked him what he did, he could have gone on for hours expounding on how important a position he'd been given only three years out of Hogwarts, and how much he liked his new boss, and how hard he worked to improve his position in the world. With Ariane it seemed obnoxious. Maybe it was obnoxious. Whatever the reason, he didn't feel that it was worthy enough to take up her time. "It's nothing really, just a desk job."

"Do you like it?"

"I like that it pays fairly well," Percy confessed frankly. "I would rather be the Minister of Magic." _But, _he added silently_, I would gladly give up any chance of being the Minister if it meant that I would be able to comb your hair every morning._

His bald statement startled a laugh out of Ariane. "You aim high," she observed, shifting a little so that she was more comfortable. "Wouldn't the responsibility be a headache?"

"I don't know. I like having responsibilities, I suppose. It's more fun to worry after other people than it is to worry after myself all the time." He almost-accidentally ran a finger down the soft skin on the back of her neck as he was separating another section of silver hair to comb. It was a little like receiving an electric shock. To take him mind off it, he swallowed hard and then asked, "So how do you like Hogwarts? What's your favorite class?"

Ariane shrugged. "I like Hogwarts. It's been a little awkward of late, because of me switching from Slytherin to Gryffindor. As you might expect that didn't make me many friends." She laughed a bit bitterly. "But I suppose I like it all the same. Your sister and Hermione kind of adopted me when I first got into Gryffindor because nobody else would talk to me."

"Their loss." Ariane laughed again, tucking one of the silky-smooth sections of her hair behind her ear. Percy fought the urge to grab her hand and memorize its feel, the shape of it, the creases in her palms. Mentally growling at himself, Percy shook his head to clear it. He was beginning to find these random desires to commit all that was Ariane to memory rather irritating. It was like trying to walk a dog on a lead when the stupid creature keeps trying to dive into the road or wrap its lead around a tree. "So which class do you like best? I bet its not Potions."

Ariane rolled her eyes, a gesture she must have picked up from Ginny. It didn't look natural when she did it. "Professor Snape has gone from polite hatred to open loathing of every aspect of my being in the past few months," she growled, a burr of irritation in her voice. "I can't believe Dumbledore lets that sadistic man teach, let alone head up an entire House. Salazar Slytherin would give birth if he knew that his House was being headed up by that git." She looked a little surprised at herself and fell silent, looking down into her lap and slumping a bit so that she was leaning against his knees.

Percy wisely decided to change the subject. "So...I don't know. Have you got a boyfriend?" The moment the words left his lips he cringed, nearly jerking on the comb. _If she has a boyfriend, I'll hunt him down_, he promised himself, then laughed inwardly at his own idiocy. _If she has a boyfriend, it's none of my business._ But he knew that he would be crushed if she said yes.

Ariane glanced back at him and half-smiled in a confused way. "No, I haven't got a boyfriend," she said, the irritation replaced with something like amusement. "Why?"

"I don't even know why I asked that," Percy berated himself aloud for her benefit even while his heart leaped, "But I just thought—that since you're here with Harry and Ron, that maybe one of them..."

"Harry and Ron? No way. Ron's been helplessly in love with Hermione for years, and Harry...Harry's just _Harry_. He doesn't have room in his life for a girlfriend." She flinched guiltily. "Don't tell Ron that I told you. Nobody's supposed to know that he likes Hermione as more than a friend."

"I won't breathe a word," Percy promised. He was beginning to run out of hair to comb in the back of her head. "Turn a bit, won't you? I can't reach the bits in front." For a tense moment he didn't think she would, but then she propelled herself around with her hands so that her back was to the fire. He had full access to the left side of her hair, which was still delightfully tangled. It would take him a good half-hour to get through her hair if the right side was still this way.

Ariane wasn't sure why she was sitting there; letting someone she had met yesterday run his hands through her hair. Sure, he was wonderfully good at it, but she wondered why she didn't feel awkward at all. If she thought hard about this problem, she felt as though she had known Percy for years. The thing was, she wasn't sure how she would have known him—or could have known him.

She was so lost in thought that at first she didn't notice the light touch on the side of her face. It was Percy, tracing a delicate line down her jaw with one hand as his other hand worked diligently away at a tangle by her left ear. His finger traveled back up, lingered for a moment in the curve of her ear, and then went back to her hair, so smoothly that Ariane wondered for a moment if she'd imagined it. If it weren't for the tingling awareness of him that had suddenly swept her being, she would have brushed it off as a fancy. She sat very still, unsure of what to do. Would it be entirely too forward to request him to do it again? Ariane couldn't think of anything to say.

Percy leaned in closer so that he could see the workings of a difficult knot, face intent. Behind his glasses, his eyes were half-squinted in concentration, eyes caught halfway between blue and green. They reminded her of the sea.

Once again Percy's hand seemed to separate itself from the rest of him and began an agonizingly slow path from her temple down her jaw. This time his fingers dallied a bit on her neck, and unconsciously she tilted her head to allow him better access. After a moment Percy moved back up to her ear, tracing one finger behind it so lightly that Ariane thought all her hair must be standing on end. It was an indescribably perfect sensation, something she'd felt before...

Ariane turned to face him, and he jumped away as though afraid he had frightened her. "Wait," she requested, catching him around the wrist. For a moment she wasn't sure how to phrase her request, then it just leaped out of her, as brazen as she'd even been.

"Would it be terribly forward," she began nervously, licking her lips, "if I asked you to kiss me?" Percy opened his mouth in surprise, the firelight reflecting off his glasses so that she couldn't read his expression. "Wait, there's more of a reason why I'm asking this. A girl in my dormitory made a prophecy about me, that I would find the person that I loved before New Years, and I think it might be you—and this is the only way I know how to be sure that it's really you," she finished lamely.

"That you loved? The past tense?" he asked softly. They were sitting so close together that she could almost feel his voice in waves through the warm air.

"It's hard to explain. It's almost like a previous life that I still have memories of...and there was this boy, and I loved him, and then I guess I must have died or something because for some reason we were separated for a really, really long time." Ariane felt herself blush and looked away. "Like lifetimes long. And Parvati told me that we would find each other again really soon, almost like we were reincarnated or something. Is this sounding insane to you?" she asked plaintively. "I think I've stopped making sense."

Percy shook his head slowly from side to side, frowning a little. Ariane hoped that the frown wasn't for her. "You've just put everything I've felt in the past day or so into words nearly perfectly."

"I have?" she inquired, confused.

"Yes. When I met you yesterday, it was a bit like we were being reintroduced—but we've never met before, I was certain of it. Your version makes sense, you know." His lips curved into a smile. "I suppose you want to make sure?" he teased with mock-seriousness.

Ariane smiled, still a little red in the face. "I suppose," she said after a mock-deliberation. "But I think that you'd be rather disappointed if I had said no." She felt silly, as though her brain had been infested with moths.

Percy laughed under his breath, then, hesitantly, as though were afraid she might shatter, he put his hands on her shoulders and lowered his face down to hers. Ariane stared for a moment into sea-green eyes with red eyelashes, but then she closed her eyes so that she wouldn't feel so self-conscious sitting on a hearth in one of her friend's houses with his _older brother_, _kissing_ of all things. After a few seconds exchanging nervous, awkward pecks, they both relaxed a bit. When Percy tried to deepen the kiss, Ariane let him, just as she had many years ago let Laramy do when they lay alone together in the grass, stargazing.

After a few minutes they broke off to breathe properly.

"So," Percy asked in a breathless voice that didn't lack irony, "Have you decided?"

"Don't be a fool," she grinned up at him giddily, playfully swatting his arm. "As if you didn't know."

He reached out and pushed her hair out of her face. "All my careful handiwork," he mourned with a grin on his lips. "I've ruined it."

Ariane lifted up a tangled strand and let it fall. "Well, there'll be other times when keeping it looking nice is a priority."

"This isn't one of those times?"

"I should say not!"

The mantle clock struck five after a short time and startled them apart again. Percy swore under his breath when he looked at the time.

"What?" Ariane asked curiously, twirling her hair into a knot and thrusting a few hairpins that she'd found in her trousers into it. "Something the matter?"

"No—well, sort of," he grumbled, half to himself. "It's just that I'm supposed to go into work today and for the first time in my entire life I have a reason that I don't want to go." Percy ran his hands through his coppery curls, looking cross and more than a little younger than he was.

"Don't you get a Christmas holiday?" Ariane jumped off the mantle so that she could peer up at the clock. "It's only five in the morning!"

"I'm usually in my office by six," Percy confessed. "And yesterday _was _my Christmas holiday."

"That's quite early."

"I don't get paid if I don't work. I don't advance, either." He carefully reached out and tucked one long silver ringlet behind her ear, stealing another caress as he did. It was taking a lot of self-discipline to make himself let go.

Ariane smiled cheekily and reached up both hands to straighten his glasses. "You look a little too tousled for the office," she informed him. When she went to lower her hands, Percy impulsively grabbed one and kissed it in a thoroughly thespian way. The inner part of him that was still deadly serious rolled its eyes.

"Percy?"

They leaped apart. By the time Mrs. Weasley had lit the lamps with her wand, Percy was fixing his wiry copper hair in the mirror and Ariane was sitting in the armchair across the room holding a book she'd seized from the side table.

"Aren't you two up a bit early?" she asked, her eyes still sleep-blurred. "I was just about to start breakfast for Kingsley and Remus, but if you two want some...?"

"I'm actually not very hungry, Mrs. Weasley, but do you need any help?" Ariane offered, putting the book back on the side table and stretching out her legs as though she'd been sitting there for hours.

"That would be lovely, dear. Percy, I don't suppose you have to work today?"

Percy looked genuinely disappointed when he said, "Yes, Mother. I'm supposed to be in the office by six." His mother smiled at him fondly as he straightened his sweater again and tried halfheartedly to smooth the creases out of his pants.

Mrs. Weasley clucked to herself as Ariane followed her into the kitchen. "Such a good boy," she said, "Maybe just a bit too in love with his job, though."

"Maybe one day he'll find something else that he loves," Ariane replied cautiously, unsure if Mrs. Weasley had been talking to her.

The kindly woman laughed and shook her head. "I'm afraid not, dear. Percy loves his career. Would you mind mixing up some eggs for me?"

Harry, Ron, Fred, and George were next down the stairs at six-thirty. Percy had left for work forty-five minutes earlier, and Ariane was fighting a sense of depression that was actually quite irritating. She had been just fine yesterday morning; she had never been miserable because of a boy like Parvati or Lavender or Hermione. Granted, she was pretty sure that this was _the_ boy. Laramy. Just as Rowena and Parvati had predicted. Weird.

But, Ariane argued to herself as she picked at her toast and marmalade, Percy wasn't at all what she'd expected. She'd expected a copy of Laramy transplanted into the 20th century, not one of her friend's estranged older brothers. Though he did have Laramy's green-blue eyes, she conceded, and when they had kissed—it was like a fairy tale. _How very corny_, Ariane commented mentally, _but entirely fitting how I feel at this point._

There was a crash that startled her back into the present day. Tonks, Remus Lupin, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Professor McGonagall were all seated around the table, and Tonks had just dropped the platter of pancakes. "S-sorry Molly," she yawned, tightening the jet-black ponytail on the back of her head. "Night duty was j-just b-beastly tonight." A huge yawn nearly split the sentence in two.

Mrs. Weasley made a sympathetic noise and helped Remus and Tonks pick up the mess. "I thought it would be," she said in a low voice. "With the Azkaban escapes and all."

At the other end of the table, Ron and Harry straightened up in their seats. Remus, who had his back to them, didn't notice and responded to Mrs. Weasley. "Dumbledore is very concerned about the escapes—apparently, a lot of key Death Eaters broke out. Malfoy, Dolohov, Mulciber, and Bellatrix Lestrange. There are others." Remus's face, normally so calm and good-natured, flickered, for the first time, into a wolf-like snarl, but almost instantly it was back to his expression of polite concern. "Dumbledore is especially worried about the escape of Mulciber and Dolohov, as they have the potential for the most serious damage within the Ministry."

"Mulciber," Tonks muttered to Kingsley. "Imperius Curse expert, right?" Kingsley nodded, his thick gold earring glinting.

Ariane would have been eager to hear more, but a regular 'tink' noise was coming from the other end of the table and distracted her attention. She turned and saw Harry bringing his fork down into a stack of pancakes with quite a bit of force, his face mask-like and angry. Ron looked torn between listening to the adult's conversation and pulling Harry away from the table before he did serious damage to the plate or himself. Ariane decided for him.

"Come on Harry, lets go wake up Hermione and Ginny," she ordered, getting up and pulling on his arm. She made no progress until Ron joined her, then he rose, grudgingly, under their combined forces.

"C'mon, mate," Ron said, half-under his breath. "Don't let it get to you."

Harry looked as though he were about to grab Ron and shake him until his teeth rattled, so Ariane pinched him, hard, on the back of his arm where she knew it would hurt the most. When he turned around she nearly quailed under his furious stare, but instead gestured that whatever reaction he was about to have, it would be better to do it upstairs.

As she followed Harry and Ron up to Ginny's room, she remembered where she'd seen such green eyes before. They were a lot like Verity's, Godric's horribly honest wife. She made a mental note to inquire after Harry's ancestry once he'd calmed down a bit.

"What's up?" she asked him once they were safely out of earshot. "Is it about the Death Eaters?"

"Yes it's about the bloody Death Eaters," Harry snarled at her. "You think you're so clever, don't you? Who'd you have to lift that off of? You sit there all smug because you've mastered some real brain-reading trick but you don't have clue what it's like to lose someone you love, do you? You just have to experience it through someone else like it's a picture show!"

Ariane was speechless, first because she didn't understand where Harry was finding a reason to yell at her like this, second because it was so unjust.

"I watched him die! Bellatrix Lestrange killed my godfather, and I had to watch, and I couldn't do a thing! You can't have any idea what it's like, because you've got no bloody memory, just some pieced-together version filtered through other people's lives. You haven't got any feelings of your own, just ones you've borrowed off people. "

"I'm sorry," Ariane said meekly, though anger was beginning to fizzle behind her cheekbones. "You've got the wrong idea, though."

"How have I got the bloody wrong idea—"

"Shut up!" she snapped at him. "How dare you say I don't understand what it's like to lose someone? I've lost _everyone_, Harry, everyone that I ever knew, my parents, my brother, my friends, everyone. They're all dead and their bones are dust, and I will never, _ever_ see them again. And how dare you insinuate that I have had to lift my memories off other people? You taught me how to do it! I remember nearly everything now, thanks to Snape and Dumbledore, and I wish I could forget most of it. Do you realize what happened to Salazar? Can you even comprehend it?"

Harry stared at her, looking as though he were trying to formulate a reply cutting enough to shut her up.

"He was pursued by the Furies—I don't suppose you know what they are. They're demons, sent to punish people who kill family members, and they're women who weep blood with great scaly wings and snakes for hair. Do you know what they did to him?" Harry and Ron both shook their heads. "They tied stones to him and forced him to walk into a pool of water until he drowned. It was a slow death, step by step by step."

"He killed you and you're sticking up for him?" Ron asked, confused.

"It was an accident!" she shouted. "Completely and thoroughly an accident!"

Harry snorted rudely. Almost of it's own will, her hand flew out and caught him on the side of the face. Ron stared aghast at Ariane, who stared aghast at her hand, which Harry was looking at warily. Before he could recover, Ariane pushed past him into Ginny's room and slammed the door. She was shaking, and she wasn't sure which emotion was causing her tremors.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked blurrily, raising her sleep-frazzled hair away from her eyes.

"Nothing at all," Ariane said dispassionately, dove onto her bed and closed her eyes resolutely. If she kept her eyes shut, then all she could see was Percy, and he blocked Harry out entirely.

Hermione and Ginny didn't make her get out of bed until it was almost noon. Ariane made a great business of getting dressed in clean clothes and brushing her tangled hair to lengthen the time before she had to explain why she and Harry weren't on speaking terms. She even put on some of Ginny's extensive collection of makeup, which nearly rivaled Daphne's. It was quite fun to experiment with different colors on her eyelids and on her lips (her eyelashes were already dark, so she avoided the mascaras, which looked dangerous). It was even more fun to wonder if Percy, or Laramy, or both of them, would like it.

Ariane wondered if Percy knew about who he'd once been—who he still was. _Should I tell him about everything?_ she wondered, then answered herself with an eye roll. _Of course I should tell him. But how?_

Meanwhile, Ginny was trying to teach Rupert to sit on her shoulder, which resulted in a lot of scratches and Rupert napping on her lap. Hermione was experimentally curling her hair around her wand, a long and laborious process that was at least half done. They must have been in the room for at least three hours.

"What do you think?" Ariane asked in an attempt to sound normal.

Ginny peered at her. "Close your eyes for a moment," she ordered. When Ariane obliged Ginny wiped the pads of her thumbs across her eyelids. "Better. You had a bit too much of that frosty blue eye shadow on."

"You look quite pretty," Hermione complimented her. "I don't remember ever seeing you with make up on before."

"Yeah, well, they didn't really have it back in the Dark Ages," Ariane smirked. "Just some nice mercuric oxide to get rid of freckles."

Ginny laughed aloud. "Isn't that dreadfully poisonous?" asked Hermione.

"Oh yes, it was banned at Hogwarts because it causes insanity and we had quite enough of that without help." Ariane smiled and pulled one of Ginny's old cream-colored sweaters on over a blue sweater and jeans. "Let's go outside and have a snowball fight." She picked up her scarf and snapped it at Ginny, her mood suddenly lighter. "Come on, or I'll tell everyone what your real name is."

Ginny's eyebrows shot skyward. "What? You were eavesdropping?" Ariane wrinkled her nose. She hardly ever peeked now that she knew more, and accidents were much more rare.

"No, I just found it written in one of your books...Iphigenia." Ginny's, or Iphigenia's, face went a color best reserved for Ron's sweaters.

"Oh, you'll pay for that," she howled, and from a seated start she managed to chase the lankier Ariane down three flights of stairs and out into the snow.

It was a glorious day. The snow was crisp and crunched under their feet, and it packed very well—as Ariane found out quickly. Ginny was an excellent athlete and had a good arm from playing Quidditch. Her carefully untangled silver hair was soon sleet-gray and soaking wet; cold water was dripping down her back. The sun was out, making the clear air sting their lungs as they chased each other all around the Burrow.

At some point, once their lungs were burning too badly to continue for a moment, Harry, Ron, and Charlie piled outside in various knitted gear and coats to provide back up. Harry and Ron joined Ginny in pelting Ariane with snowballs, but Charlie took Ariane's side and together they drove the two Weasleys and Harry around behind the chicken coop.

"Hermione, save us!" Ginny bellowed, pushing a half-frozen strand of hair out of her face. "Get down here!"

The addition of Hermione had Ariane and Charlie on the run. An icy ball hit Ariane in the side of the face, and, howling with helpless laughter, she threw one back and managed to hit Harry right in the ear. He swore and stopped to paw it out of his ear while Ron dashed past, aiming for Charlie, whom he thought had thrown the snowball. Just then, Ron was hit full in the face with a powdery handful that turned his hair white and frosted his eyebrows, which were sky-high.

Ariane turned to Charlie to congratulate him, but he was looking behind him to see who had thrown it. She turned a little farther and saw Percy in his overcoat gathering up another snowball, the bright sun glinting off his glasses.

"What are you doing here?" Ron asked bluntly.

"I took the afternoon off. There's nothing at the office that I can't finish up tomorrow." Percy shrugged, packing the snowball and letting it melt in his hands so that it would be easier to throw.

This sounded perfectly fine to Ariane, but she saw that everyone else was floored by Percy's statement. Ginny was mouthing to Hermione "Percy _never_ takes the afternoon off." Percy wound up again and threw completely at random, hitting Charlie squarely in the chest. His stocky brother stared at it for a moment, then grinned and threw one back.

It was a free-for all from there on out until they all collapsed in the snow, panting and laughing like fools. Ariane found a clear patch of snow and scooped up a handful, letting it melt on her tongue and trickle ice-cold down her throat while she stared up at the painfully blue sky.

"Hey, Ariane," someone whispered next to her. She turned her head in the snow and saw Percy, glasses fogged over and pushed a little up so that he could see her. His dark red curls were filled with tiny snowflakes. "You want to go for a walk?"

_Author's Note: Man this one was a nightmare to finish. I felt like I couldn't really concentrate on anything until I got Percy and Ariane off alone together again (what an oxymoron, alone together. How did that creep into our vocabularies?) In case anyone isn't a Greek mythology buff, Iphigenia is pronounced (at least by my Classical Humanities teacher) If-ah-gin-eye-ah. I don't know why anyone would name his or her child that (or even if it's shortened to Ginny) but I thought it suitably embarrassing to provoke a snowball fight. I hope I got Percy right (or at least right enough not to put him entirely OOC)._

_In answer your question, Mockingbird, I didn't have only Percy as the idea from the beginning because the Laramy-incarnate thing only really gelled when I wrote the chapter about Rowena and Helga. I came up with the idea of Percy/Ariane while I was on holiday this summer (plane flights...not good for a person who can barely sit still for five minutes) but I didn't know how to work it in to Films About Ghosts. But now...it's here. Yay for that._

_I usually have to have an inspiration for my characters, like a base for how they'll act. I don't remember who I used for Ariane. Tuyet is based off me and my friend Alison, Daphne is several girls in my year at school, and for a while I didn't have anyone for Percy. Then I watched the Alamo and was just floored by Patrick Wilson's performance as the young, stuffy, good-hearted William Travis. I love moments like that when things just click into place, because then I had a mold to base Percy off of (because I know that he's got good points, even if they don't show up in JK's books so much...oh well, I would never change anything about her books, so I can't complain.)_

_Enough of that. Review please!_


	18. Malfoy

"_If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 18: Malfoy**

Ariane and Percy discreetly separated themselves from the wet, cold troop that marched towards the Burrow.

"Won't they notice you're gone?" Percy asked as they scrambled down a snow bank.

"Not with fifty other people in there," Ariane replied, "Everyone will just assume that I'm somewhere they're not." She fished in her pockets, found a hair elastic, and pulled her heavy, wet hair into a clumsy ponytail. Though this was meant to get her sopping hair off her neck, all it did was create a steady, more concentrated, drip of water down her back. Ariane decided to let it drip. "So," she began, "how did you get off work?"

"Admitted that for once I wanted to take more than a day off for Christmas," Percy told her with a small smile. "They let me go because I've got enough built-up vacation days to take most of next year off." He took off his glasses to wipe the snowball residue off them and nearly tripped over a half-buried log. "Bloody hell," he swore, jamming his glasses back onto his nose. "I hate these things."

"What are they for? Up close or far away?" Ariane asked curiously. She knew through experience that Harry couldn't see anything clearly that was more than five feet away without his glasses on, because as a revenge, when he'd accused her of fancying Draco Malfoy in October, she'd hidden them. Though Harry'd gotten his revenge later (he'd made everything she ate taste like grapefruit, which she couldn't stand), it was interesting to watch him look for everything with his fingertips for a few hours.

"Up close. I'm far-sighted, so I without them everything that's not a quarter-mile away is blurry."

"Should I stand farther away while you clean your glasses, then?"

"Ha ha," Percy laughed drolly. "Just stop me from tripping over anything. My foot feels like it's broken." He pulled off his half-cleaned glasses again and bunched up the bottom of his overcoat to wipe off the other lens. Almost at once another buried obstacle loomed, this one apparently an old car tire.

"Percy, watch out!" Ariane seized his arm and pulled him out of the way.

"Thanks," he told her, once he'd replaced his glasses and regained his balance. "I don't think I've heard you say my name before."

Ariane peered at him, confused. "What? Well, I only met you yesterday. I didn't want to frighten you off by saying your name nine times a minute," she laughed, pulling her ponytail over her shoulder and wringing it out. Her hands were bright white with cold, and she quickly buried them in the sleeves of her sweater.

They walked in silence for a few more minutes, hearing only the crunch of their shoes in the snow and the faint noises of the Weasley house fading behind them. Ariane realized that they were on a faint pathway, pressed into the dirt by the tread of many feet, that wound down from the Burrow, around Stoatshead Hill, and over a smaller hillock to the forest that lay nearby, bare and brown. She peered ahead at the spiny trees, wondering what lived in that barren wood.

Percy took advantage of her distraction to study her face now that she had her hair pulled lumpily back. It was delicate and small-featured, except for her wide-open violet eyes that looked almost black against the bright, snowy background. Her eyebrows were thin, dark, and arching, nearly black. The lashes that curled away from her eyes were also quite dark, and they were almost extravagantly long. She had the faintest few freckles on her arched cheekbones, but her skin was enviably good otherwise. The mouth that sat so quietly now between her nose and chin was, like the rest of her features, small and thin, but when it smiled it was easily her best attribute.

"You're staring," she told him, winding a long striped scarf more tightly around her throat. Ariane favored him with that sideways grin, glancing up at him from the corners of her eyes.

"Wouldn't you if you were me?" he asked before he'd quite thought out how it sounded. Entirely too forward, that was certain. Ariane went bright pink and looked down at the snow. Percy bit his lip.

A longer silence stretched. This time it was Ariane sizing up Percy.

_How much does he remember about the last time we met—when I was Salazar Slytherin's forbidden younger sister and he was called Laramy? _she wondered desperately. _Should I ask? Should I tell? How would I even bring that up? "Right, Percy, you might not remember this, but my older brother tried his hardest to kill you, ended up killing me instead, and then brought me back from the dead."_ Ariane shook her head to dispel this idiotic sentence from her brain.

_But I have to tell him, don't I? Well, I will sooner or later, since if we're going to spend a lot of time together—oh, I hope we do!—he's bound to pick up a memory eventually. I'm surprised he hasn't already._ Ariane bit her lip and dug a hand into her ponytail. _I should tell him now, _she decided.

"Are you all right?" Percy asked her, his forehead furrowing just above the nosepiece of his glasses.

"I'm okay," she shrugged, swallowed hard, and then continued, "Percy—I wasn't entirely honest with you this morning."

Percy stopped walking. "About what?" he demanded. "The prophecy?"

"No," Ariane replied defensively. "About the previous lives thing."

"What, am I not what you were expecting?" Percy challenged, looking slightly hurt.

Ariane dug both her hands into her hair and made an irritated noise halfway between a sigh and a snarl. "Percy! Listen, you've got to hear me out, beginning to end. It's only fair that you know as much about this as I do."

"I'm all ears." He made a sarcastically grand gesture for her to begin.

"God!" she snapped, stomping her foot and scattering snow. "This isn't about you. This is about me, and how indescribably screwed up my past is!" Suddenly Ariane realized what had set a burr in Percy's pants. "I'm not going to make a whole bunch of excuses and…I don't know, _dump_ you or anything. All I want is for you to know the truth so that you don't run screaming from _me_."

"Oh," he said abashedly, slumping a little. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Ariane told him, resting her head against his shoulder. "I don't mind."

Percy sighed. "Sorry anyway. I shouldn't have flown off the handle. What do you want to tell me?" he queried, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Ariane drew in a deep breath and began to walk, her nervous energy playing itself out. Percy kept step with her, his arm still holding her as though he could keep her away from whatever it was that was bothering her.

"All right," she began. "Remember how I told you I remember you from a previous life?"

"Yes," Percy replied, his breath fogging in the frigid air.

"Well, it was your previous life, not mine. Wait, that was awful…er…can I just start at the beginning?" Ariane pleaded. "This is really weird and hard to explain."

Percy smiled genuinely, if a little tightly. "I've got all the rest of today…and hopefully a lot longer than that."

Ariane smiled back because he looked like he needed the reassurance, and then took another deep breath. "I was born about a thousand years ago. Actually it might be a little more, but I'm not sure. My mother and my brother and I all lived together—my dad wasn't around—until I was three or so, when the villagers burnt my mom at the stake for being a witch. Then my brother Salazar and I went north and eventually ran into three people called Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff." She glanced up at Percy, who was staring into the distance, frowning slightly.

"So in this previous life you were Salazar Slytherin's sister?" he asked slowly.

"It wasn't a previous life," Ariane corrected him. "When I was about fifteen I met a boy called Laramy Ferrer, and we fell in love." She told him all about Laramy, how they'd kept their love hidden from Salazar for nearly a whole year, and Salazar's rage when he found out. "Then, when I was sixteen, Salazar tried to kill Laramy."

"And he killed you," Percy finished grimly.

"You remember?" Ariane asked eagerly.

"No," he replied, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I just know that's what happened."

She sighed. "Well, he obviously felt awful about it, so he tried to bring me back to life. And it worked, but it was awfully slow. I didn't wake up until September this year."

Percy stopped walking and turned Ariane to face him. "What happened to Laramy?" he asked levelly. Ariane could tell that he was jealous of the boy she had loved, even though he was technically the same person as Percy.

Ariane told him about Rowena and Helga and how Rowena had made it so that Laramy would be reincarnated with each generation until he and Ariane found each other again. She explained that Percy probably couldn't remember the past lives because it would drive him mad. "Imagine being a little baby who knows all about life and death and everything that goes between."

She took another deep breath; this one verged on a sob. "Snape read all my memories just after I arrived, to prove that I wasn't lying," she confessed, "and it sort of opened up my mind so that I started leaking memories into other people's heads and picking up other people's memories. That's why I had to tell you, you see, in case you got a vision of the ancient past from my head or something."

"I'm sorry if none of this makes sense. Please don't think I'm weird or crazy or anything," she requested quietly, staring up the seven or so inches into his sea-green eyes. "Because I'm not crazy, honestly."

In reply he kissed her on the forehead and pulled her in to a hug that reminded Ariane of exactly how long she'd gone without letting anyone hold her—of how long she'd held back, nervous that she'd leave behind some horror that should never have left her mind. She let herself relax, and, thankfully, no memory sprang to mind to haunt them both.

Percy wasn't nervous at all—perhaps because he still didn't realize all the horrors that this frail girl held inside her silver head—only relieved that she'd finally come clean with him. He didn't doubt her honesty, only his ability to understand and match said honesty. Though he did rather hope she would warn him if something awful were about to happen with her memories.

"Weasley?"

Oh, _shit_.

_Thanks loads, God. I never expected such a very prompt response._ Although, to be fair to God, this had nothing to do with Ariane.

Yet.

Ariane twisted so that she could see who was behind Percy. He moved too, not to block her view, but to hide her from sight. To Ariane's vexation and Percy's relief, he managed both.

"Who's there?" Percy asked, pulling his wand out of its special pocket at the small of his back.

"Don't fret your freckled head, Weasley, it's only me."

Ariane frowned. She recognized that voice, the imperious tone, and the condescending words—Malfoy? She peeked around Percy's arm and saw a man who looked as though the Furies had chased him from Turkey to Spain and back again. His long blonde hair was matted and muddy, his robes were tattered and hung on him as though he'd lost a great deal of weight in a short period of time. His skin was white and cracked with cold, and his eyes, pale grey, were surrounded by a sea of red, as though every blood vessel in his eyes had burst. The evil grin on his gaunt face made Ariane want to run.

"Lucius Malfoy?" Percy asked, sounding as alarmed as Ariane at the sight of Draco's father.

"In the flesh!" he smiled almost lovingly, throwing his arms out in what could have once been a handsome theatrical gesture. Now it only made him look more insane. "And you, Percy Weasley, not a mile from the family you supposedly left forever. A strange pair we make. Or should I say trio?" He moved forward faster than Ariane thought possible and snaked out a hand.

Percy blocked him. "Stay back."

Lucius pursed his thin lips. "Chivalry is dead, Weasley. I know you've got a girl with you, and that distinctive hair could only belong to a person my son has been writing to me about." He waggled his fingers and smiled again, this time cheerfully. "Ariane, is it not?"

She froze like a rabbit when a hawk screamed. "Draco wrote you? But you were in Azkaban," she whispered.

"They still let you have your mail as long as you remember what to do with it," Lucius said dryly. Percy was still standing in front of Ariane, blocking her face from Lucius's view. "Come, boy," he demanded, sounding aggrieved, "My son described her as quite pretty, and I'd welcome the sight of anything female right now." His eyes glinted, and Ariane shivered. She was very glad she had not been walking alone—what could have happened made her feel sick to her stomach.

"I don't think that would be to my advantage," Percy replied haughtily; almost in Lucius's exact tone. Ariane nearly giggled, but the cold and the severity of their situation held her back. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

"Oh, I want a lot of things," Lucius purred. "I'd like to see Harry Potter burn, first of all. I'd like to get home; I'd like to crush that old fool Dumbledore under my foot. But right now, I want to know why you're here, Weasley."

"This is my home," Percy said stiffly, drawing himself up so that he was looking down on Lucius. "Why are you here?"

"Really? Is it?" Lucius laughed manically, his matted blonde hair falling over his face. Abruptly he stopped, straightened, reached out, and grabbed Percy's left arm—his wand arm—with one of his white, skeletal hands. "That's not what I've heard, Weasley," he breathed, drawing Percy inwards until Ariane could see Percy flinching away from Lucius's rotten breath.

"Let him go!" she squeaked, then cleared her throat and ordered, "Stop it!"

He obeyed, to her surprise, but it was only so that he could snatch at her. Ariane lunged away, but her hair betrayed her. Lucius caught the end of her ponytail and jerked it hard enough to knock her backwards into the snow. She yelled in pain and kicked out at him, but it was nearly impossible to hit someone who was behind her. Percy wasn't handicapped by this, and pointed his wand at Lucius's face.

"Let her go now."

All three of them stopped moving and looked around for the new person. Lucius found him or her first. His mad face twisted into a snarl. "_You_," he snapped. "Angharad—"

"Reiecto!" said Professor Connor coldly, her bronze-colored hair blowing loose around her face. Lucius flew backwards and hit a particularly solid-looking tree with a crunch. Professor Connor let him fall unconscious to the ground, looking at him the same disgusted, pitiless way she would have if he had hexed himself. She looked even thinner than the last time Ariane had seen her in class, but somehow her anger made her look almost pretty. It was weird to think of her nasty, cutting professor as pretty.

Her pale green eyes snapped to Ariane, lying in the snow, and Percy, with his wand out. "Get up," she ordered briskly, all that hidden prettiness gone. Ariane scrambled to her feet, brushing snow off her backside, while Percy kept his wand up, eyeing Professor Connor warily.

"Who are you?" he asked, obviously confused as to why this strange and bad-tempered woman was helping them.

"None of your damn business. Get out of the woods, kids," she advised dryly.

"Why?" Ariane asked curiously. The full moon was still a week away.

"Because somewhere around here is Lucius's hit man, and he'll probably kill both of you on sight. He's like that." Percy and Ariane looked back at Lucius Malfoy, who was bleeding copiously from a cut on his scalp. The way he was lying didn't look possible unless he'd broken a lot of bones. "You—Percy, is it? Put a Memory Charm on Malfoy so that he forgets about meeting you two in the woods. Make him forget me, too."

Percy gave her a suspicious look. "Why?" he asked slowly.

Professor Connor raised one eyebrow and glared a Percy for a solid minute. He didn't back down, but Ariane could tell that he was intimidated. Finally, she sighed and answered, "Because I'm supposedly working for Lucius Malfoy and it doesn't look good when your hired help snaps your spine against a tree."

Ariane digested this new information about her professor and decided it made sense, now that she'd met Lucius Malfoy. Draco's father would want someone as ruthless and smart as Professor Connor working for him. "Why can't you do it?" Ariane queried rashly.

"Stop wasting time!" she snapped, and sparks shot out of her wand. It was clear that she didn't feel bad at all for nearly breaking a man in half, so Percy did what she wanted. Ariane would have too, but luckily Professor Connor wasn't talking to her.

After Percy'd finished wiping Lucius's recent memory, Professor Connor shooed him ahead with an impatient flap of her hand. "Go back to your home, boy. I want to talk to the girl."

"I'd rather she came with me," Percy responded, looking as determined as his mother did when she was in one of her tempers. "I don't trust you."

"I don't trust you," Professor Connor shot back, "But the difference is that you are smart, and therefore you realize that you_ will_ do what I ask or I'll get you too." To finalize this decision, her hand clamped on Ariane's shoulder with the strength of steel pincers.

"Go on," Ariane encouraged him. "She's a teacher at Hogwarts. She's all right—mostly," she muttered the last under her breath.

Percy looked extremely suspicious, but he took a step away from them. "I'll wait at the edge of the wood," he threw back over his shoulder as he stalked away.

"Clever boy," Professor Connor breathed to herself. Her green gaze snapped to Ariane. "You, girl, what do you mean by wandering off in the middle of nowhere with that boy?"

"My name," Ariane said evenly, "is Ariane, and his is Percy." She objected to being referred to as 'girl' every alternate word.

"He could be styling himself Charlemagne," shot back Professor Connor, "but that doesn't make a difference in the fact that I know that he's been approached by the Death Eaters."

It was as though a freezing wind had blown across her soul. "What?" she gasped. "What do you mean?"

A twig snapped nearby. "Come on," her teacher urged, steering her out of the wood. "What I mean is, Death Eaters are selective. They know what they want in a person, ambitiousness, a lack of personal attachments, and intelligence. They see that in that b—Percy." Ariane stared at Professor Connor's pale, set face and looked for a lie. It wasn't there.

"He isn't a Death Eater, is he?"

That question felt as though the future of the world depended on it. Ariane couldn't let someone that she loved be the same sort of creature that Lucius Malfoy had become. The vision of Percy, asleep on the chair, his glasses pressed up into his forehead, mouth slightly open, flitted before her eyes. That wasn't the face of a Death Eater.

Professor Connor cleared her throat and impatiently shoved a handful of gold-brown hair behind her ear. "He isn't one, no. But you should know that the reason he came home was to prove that he would be accepted again by his family and could spy for the Dark Lord." Ariane gaped at her. "You should know this, since you're staying with the Weasleys, but they're one of the main families against the Dark Lord."

"I had a vague idea," Ariane whispered. "How can he be a spy?"

"He isn't yet," Professor Connor replied, glancing around nervously as the wood thinned. "You may have increased his chances of becoming one, though."

Ariane stopped walking. "What do you mean?" she demanded, forgetting to be quiet.

Professor Connor winced and checked over her shoulder again, then shook Ariane hard. "Shut up! I mean that horrible things happen to people who back out of becoming Death Eaters. And to their loved ones." She gave Ariane a significant look. "I'd say between Malfoy's kid and that Weasley, you've outdone yourself. Are you suicidal?"

"Not yet," Ariane grumbled to herself. "How do you know Percy's trying to become a Death Eater?" she asked at the edge of the wood, where Percy stood against a tree, looking very grumpy and suspicious. He cast a filthy look at Professor Connor, who blithely ignored it.

"I work part-time for a Death Eater, Somerled," she said flatly. "That's a pretty good source. If you can find a better one, let me know." She pushed Ariane towards Percy and stalked back into the woods. Ariane watched her go, and, soon enough, a tall, beardless man joined her. He was tall, with long gray hair tied in a horsetail. He had the same rawboned sort of build as Professor Connor, and Ariane wondered if he was her older brother or father. Or maybe he was another werewolf.

Percy fell into step beside her as they made their way back around the hill to the Burrow. "Is she always so pushy?" he asked through his teeth, barely holding back his temper.

"Mostly," Ariane said, tucking her freezing hands into her pockets. "She's also a werewolf and rather dangerous."

"Yes, I know that. I was thinking about it while you two took your time coming out of the wood, and I've seen her before."

"Have you?" Ariane asked, interested. "How?"

Percy made a face. "Last year I had to work at the Werewolf Registry," he began, "you know, to make note of the number of werewolves living in England, to note which ones have died and if there are any new ones."

"Well, of course Professor Connor would be there. I've seen her transform," she told Percy, who gave her a stern look.

"Unless you want me to die of a broken heart, please don't go anywhere near a werewolf at full moon ever again," he stated flatly, but his arm snaked around her shoulders and gave her a half-hug. "It's hard enough for me to think of the end of the holidays, when I'll have to go back to work and you'll have to go back to school, let alone you doing something half-witted and getting yourself killed."

Ariane ignored the part about being half-witted and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm not going to go anywhere," she reassured him. "Except Hogwarts."

"I don't want you to go anywhere," he replied, smiling at her so that his eyes crinkled behind his glasses. "I like you right here," he whispered, and kissed her.

Ariane was in a blissful (if entirely too cold) state until someone cleared his or her throat sharply behind then. _Oh God, please don't let it be Professor Connor,_ Ariane prayed. _Or Professor McGonagall. That would be worse._

Unfortunately, it was someone infinitely worse than Professor McGonagall and Professor Connor combined. It was Ron, and his freckled face was bright red with either anger or embarrassment. Possibly both. Ariane felt her face turning a similar shade.

"What the _hell_ was that, Ariane?" Ron demanded. It was clear that anger was definitely trumping embarrassment for the reason he was going scarlet. He was a study of red, from the maroon sweater to the carroty hair to the magenta face. "Why were you—and him—that's _disgusting_," he finally spat out.

"Nobody asked you," Ariane shot back, stepping slightly away from Percy. "Why are you snooping around anyway?" She was aware that she was being a little unreasonable, but she was too embarrassed herself to stop.

_Why am I embarrassed?_ she asked herself. _I love him. Should I be afraid to let his family know that?_

"You've got to be four years younger than him! And he's my _brother_!" Percy was going a fainter version of Ron's red, nearly masked by the rims of his glasses. Ariane knew that she must be in a full state of glowing blush by this point.

Ron was beginning to lose the powers of speech, and coughed out several disjointed sentiments: "Ridiculous—urgh—Mum'll die of shock—_disgusting_," he stuttered, his ears glowing so hot that it was a miracle the snow was still frozen. "Are you _insane_?" he asked both of them.

_Oh yes, Ariane. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid._

_Author's Note: Er…this is not my favorite chapter, simply because it was not only hard to write, I don't think that I have a lot to show for my hard work. Basically, I think this whole thing sucks ass, but luckily the next chapter has better things to write about in it (though I did enjoy making Ron suffer…poor Ron…his bookish brother's got a better sex life than him…ouch)._

_Right. Anyway, drop a review._


	19. So Sworn

"_If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 19: So Sworn**

She was standing, shivering, in a crowd of black-robed men. They were all armed with wands, and each and every wand was aimed at her heart. Ariane folded her arms over her chest and looked down at her bare feet in the snow. Her teeth were chattering, and her toes were blue with cold.

"How is it you live?" demanded a shrill voice that Ariane knew—and yet it was unfamiliar to her. "I killed you months ago."

Ariane didn't look up; she was too scared. She was even more afraid that she would lose control of her bladder before too long, and then they would mock her more than they already had.

"How does she live?" the voice demanded again, stalking closer to Ariane until she could see his feet, warmly booted, a foot away from her bare ones. "I do not understand it." A pair of hands reached out and seized her shoulders, and he tried to force her to look at him. Ariane closed her eyes and did what she'd been told to do: she reached out, grabbed the man by the ears, and jerked as hard as she could.

He roared in pain and struck out at her, sending her crashing to the ground with her right eye swelling swiftly closed. Ariane, both her eyes watering with pain and fear, crawled away through the snow, her thick skirts tangling around her legs and her bodice restricting her range of motion. Above her, a man stood with an axe.

She couldn't get away, the snow was too slippery. Her hands scrabbled against the slick ground, her fingernails filled with earth.

The axe came down with a sick and heavy thud onto the exposed back of her neck.

Ariane awoke panting, dripping with sweat, and distinctly unsettled. That was not the first time that night she'd dreamed of her own death in similar situations. Once the shrill-voiced man had killed her, another time Hermione had hexed her on accident, a third time she'd died by the hands of a hooded man who had choked her slowly to death on the frozen ground.

She went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, trying not to think about her various gruesome and bloody deaths. Instead she thought about Mrs. Weasley's reaction when Ron had told her that Percy obviously fancied 'her' (he had avoided using Ariane's name—apparently it caused him some pain). Ariane had expected to be thrown out in the snow, perhaps stoned to death, maybe even locked in the cellar.

To Ron's and Ariane's surprise, Mrs. Weasley had hugged her warmly and congratulated her for 'taking the time to get to know the real Percy' while shooting a very dirty look at George, who had pantomimed vomiting into a Christmas stocking behind Percy's back. Ginny (who didn't seem to mind that her brother fancied one of her friends) explained this to Ariane in very frank terms.

"Mum thought he'd never get a girl 'cause he's such an arse," she told Ariane while tempting Rupert with a piece of tinsel. "But you don't seem to mind that."

Ariane hadn't been sure whether she should be offended or not. Even now, three days later, she wasn't sure. Harry and Ron were sure about two things: Ariane was far too young for Percy, and the fact that she'd gone after Ron's brother after he'd invited her over for Christmas was a crime of supreme severity. Ariane had pointed out more than once that she was seventeen and had been since October, and Percy had only just turned twenty that August. "I didn't even know you had a brother called Percy until you invited me," she snapped at Ron one particularly trying day, "and I'd appreciate it if you stopped blaming it on me. If anything, it's your fault."

That little statement had left Ron gaping and making incoherent noises for nearly five minutes. It had also made Harry stop talking to her entirely.

Ariane stared at the water swirling down the drain, making it's little clockwise path around the white basin, and wondered if Harry realized how much this hurt. Harry was probably the only person in the world who knew what it was like to not have complete and total control of your own thoughts. Sure, he was a bit superior and could be irritatingly smug sometimes, but altogether he was a nice person. Godric Gryffindor would have liked him a lot.

Salazar probably would have liked him too.

Ariane frowned into the empty basin. She hadn't thought it was possible for one person to display ambition and bravery in one mind. Well, sure, it was probably possible, just not probable. Not to mention that Harry was a Gryffindor darling, and hated the Slytherins with a passion. Well, hated Draco Malfoy with a passion. But was Draco even a Slytherin? If he had ambition, he hadn't shown it. He was shrewd, but not exceptionally so. Yet he was in Slytherin.

Did this Sorting Hat even know what it was supposed to be looking for?

She shook her head to dispel the thoughts. There was a headache beginning behind her eyes, and she was very tired.

Ariane crept back into Ginny's room and eyed her rumpled bed with misgiving. She wanted no more dreams of her own death.

"You hear that?" she whispered at the ceiling as she lay back down. "No more of those dreams."

Whoever it was she'd been speaking to obliged.

The setting was the same: the edge of a wood in the dead of winter, the trees thick and bare and knotted. The snow was thick under her feet, and it was melting into the hem of her long skirt. Above her the sky was solid and gray with clouds that threatened more snow. About fifty feet from the edge of the wood a lake began, the rim of it a broad band of ice.

There were also differences:

Ariane was not among the hooded men this time. Her hands were tied firmly in front of her by a length of thin cord, and she stood with a few other similarly gagged and bound people. Her hair was mostly pulled back, instead of loose like before, and what little of it she could see had been dyed dark brown. The hooded men stood across from her, their faces still strangely concealed. She leaned to the side to see whom it was that stood among them in her place and was poked sharply in the side by the taller person next to her.

It was Percy, looking rumpled, pale, and smudged. One of the lenses of his glasses was cracked, and the other was half-gone. He had not been gagged, but that was because it looked as though he was having trouble thinking of two words to say. There was a thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face from a wound concealed under his hair.

Ariane made to touch his shoulder, to ask what had happened, but he shook his head very slightly from side to side. The shrill-voiced man pushed aside the hooded men and pulled the boy they had been concealing into the center of the clearing. Ariane gasped aloud.

It was Harry.

Like Percy, he looked worse for the wear. There was a nasty cut across the bridge of his nose and he was moving in an awkward way that suggested a sprained ankle or knee. Harry looked defiant, as he usually did, but he also looked scared. His eyes flicked to Ariane and then away very quickly, as though afraid of her. Or concealing her.

"Why aren't you dead?" the shrill-voiced man demanded of Harry. "I saw to it that you and that abomination of a girl would die in the same breath, so that my position here wouldn't be threatened."

"You only got it half-right," Harry said coolly, his voice steady.

"Did I?" the man purred. "_Crucio."_

Harry didn't scream at once, as the hooded men had obviously expected, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to his knees, his whole body twitching. His arms fought their bindings, and the cut on his nose and another across his shoulder began to bleed anew. The man frowned and made a gesture with his wand.

A low moan burst from Harry's throat; slowly growing louder until it was a howl as helpless as a newborn baby's. His whole body contorted in on itself, as though every muscle was trying to flex at once. He screamed again, and this time it was so awful that Ariane felt tears come to her eyes. The man smiled cruelly and began to make the gesture that had increased the pain before.

"Stop!" Ariane shrieked. She elbowed her way through the others and ran out into the clearing, coming to a sliding stop on her knees in front of Harry, who was still jerking in the snow. Hot tears were running down her face, and she couldn't wipe them away because her hands were still tied in front of her.

The shrill man's mouth formed a small o. He lifted his wand and Harry relaxed into the snow.

She made an effort to wipe her dripping nose, trying hard not to look up. Ariane realized that she'd been exceedingly stupid and just made Harry's suffering completely pointless, because all along he'd been trying to pretend she was dead.

A cold hand, colder than the snow and ice, seized her chin and turned her face to his.

Ariane tried to look away but couldn't. The man had a white-white face, red, slitted eyes, and dark hair that he had bound loosely away from his face. She swallowed hard.

"I killed you," he told her, and she shivered. "I swore it was so."

It was extremely stupid to point out that no, he hadn't killed Ariane after all, but it was what Harry did. The words were mostly slurred, but Ariane knew that the man understood because he stretched out his other white hand and struck Harry very hard across the face.

"Stop it!" she screamed at him, and stepped hard on his foot.

Luckily in this dream she had sturdy boots on. The man hissed with pain and backed away, getting ready to make a spell.

Then everything happened at once.

Somewhere, Salazar called her name as he ran towards her, black hair bound back and touched with gray at the temples. "Ariane?"

A man separated himself from the crowd of hooded men and threw himself between the two teenagers and the man.

And Harry stood up, his wand held shakily in front of him.

Ariane was pushed to the ground by someone and got a face full of snow, only managing to look up after the man had shrieked his spell. She saw him draw his wand across the air in front of him viciously.

A spray of red, red blood hit Ariane in the face, and a dark-haired head hit the ground in front of her and rolled, it's body following slowly after.

* * *

Percy hadn't been asleep on the couch for more than an hour when he heard Ariane scream. He hadn't realized how fast he could move until then, up the stairs and through the door to see Ariane sitting bolt up in bed, her face white and stricken. She had mercifully not cried out again, but instead her whole body was shaking with hysterical, silent sobs and her eyes were so tightly closed it looked painful. Ginny and Hermione, apparently not much affected (or they had thought that the scream had been in their dreams) were only stirring on their beds.

He made his way across the crowded room and sat down at the foot of her bed. "Ariane," Percy whispered. She didn't move. He moved himself closer and, half-assured half-bewildered, pulled her next to him as though somehow he could take away whatever mental agony she suffered.

Ariane tried to push him away. "Get off," she muttered. "I don't want to give it to you."

"I don't care," Percy told her stoutly and held her tighter until she made a mildly irritated noise and leaned against him, her fragile frame shaking as though she'd been running hard for a long time. "What did you dream?" he asked, breathing in the light scent of her hair.

"Death," Ariane whispered. "My death, mostly." Her breath caught in her throat and she hiccupped. "You were there, sometimes. So were Harry and Hermione, and there were others." Percy saw her eyes widen, glassy in the dim room. "It was like different versions of one scene. Each time I did something different, and I always died anyway. Well, not the last—the last…" she broke off and shook her head, her eyes filling with tears and her shudders redoubling. Like a little girl, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shirt, sobbing like her heart was broken.

Percy wasn't sure what to do. Tears he could handle after a fashion, hysterics—no. Nobody in his family was ever hysterical except his mother, and his father always managed those episodes. "It's all right," he soothed. "It was a dream."

This seemed to calm Ariane down—or at least make her think. He could feel her face pucker into a frown against the front of his shirt. "No," she said after a pause. "I don't think it was."

"What was it?" Percy asked, frowning himself. "A memory?"

"No," she muttered. "You were in it. And yet—it must have been, because Salazar was there too." Her voice strengthened with conviction. "It was as though I were seeing a memory I haven't had yet."

The business of time travel had always confused Percy horribly. "What? That's not possible—or it's a prediction."

"I don't really predict things," Ariane said thoughtfully. "I've never dreamed of anything but the past." She turned so that she could look up at him in the dark, the faint moonlight making her pewter hair glow. "What if I was seeing the past—but it was my future?"

Percy frowned harder, trying to imagine how this was even possible. "How can you see something you haven't done yet?" he asked crossly, rubbing his forehead.

"No idea," Ariane shrugged, the tremor almost gone from her voice. She wiped her wet face with the hem of her nightshirt, revealing for a moment a patch of white skin Percy had not yet seen. It was distracting. Then she let the hem drop and the collar slipped aside to reveal a shoulder and collarbone.

Right, that was more than distracting. That was just plain unfair.

Why did being a guy mean that he had to have the idiotic amount of hormones?

"Did I wake you up?" Ariane asked, pushing the nightshirt back up. Percy's eye followed her hand and she blushed in the dark, self-conscious of the way it slithered down again.

"Not really—well, yes, but it doesn't matter," he muttered. They paused for a second while Percy's brain chewed on two different things at once. One of his trains of thought was along the lines of how he wished Hermione and Ginny weren't sleeping in the same room with them. The second was the whole idea of knowing a future because it had happened before.

Of the two subjects, Percy liked the first vastly more than the second. At least it was something he understood. Mostly.

But the first subject was not something he really wanted to take the time to find a way to talk about, so he settled for saying: "That past-as-a-future thing couldn't be just an extreme case of déjà vu, could it?"

"Not unless you've met Salazar," Ariane replied. She snuggled against his shoulder, and abruptly, Percy knew exactly what Salazar Slytherin looked like.

It was hard to describe, other than the sudden knowledge that Salazar had been tall and thin, with long black hair and eyes the same velvety purple as Ariane's. Percy frowned, then realized that what had happened to everyone else around Ariane was happening to him: he was picking up snippets of her thoughts. Well, that wasn't what he wanted, her thoughts were hers. She could keep them. Percy made a mental resolution not to let it happen again.

"I don't want to go back to Hogwarts," Ariane whispered.

"Why not?"

"Well, you're not there, firstly, and I don't really like it there," she confessed. "Most of the people think I'm a weirdo, the Slytherins openly hate me, and the only Gryffindors that actually talk to me are Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny." She paused for thought. "And Neville, sometimes. When there's nobody else to talk to."

"To be honest with you, I wasn't a big fan of Hogwarts either," Percy told her. He'd never shared this thought with anyone. "I always felt like I was alone there, even though there were loads of other people."

"Exactly," Ariane murmured. She shifted and the bedsprings creaked. "I feel like something awful is going to happen, Percy."

He pushed her silver hair out of her face. "Nothing's going to happen," he told her seriously. "Not to you." Once again, his overtly practical inner self rolled its eyes as Percy leaned over and kissed her, letting himself get utterly lost in eyes the color of the sky just before dawn. When they broke apart, he promised, "As long as I'm here, I won't let anything happen to you."

"Don't promise that," Ariane whispered. "It's a promise that's too hard for anyone to keep."

"What would you like me to promise?" he asked, puzzled by her resolute rejection.

She thought, one of her hands winding in his hair. "Promise that no matter what, I'll never lose you again."

"Consider it so sworn," Percy replied, smiling despite himself.

Ariane smiled too. "In return, I promise that I'll never get hopelessly lost," she half-teased, "so that you don't have to break your promise."

"What?" Percy laughed. "Well, so long as we end up hopelessly lost in the same place."

"Does that make sense?"

"No, not really. Does it matter?"

"Er…no, I really don't think so."

After about ten minutes of entertaining themselves, Ariane pulled away. "We really ought to go downstairs," she whispered breathlessly. "Or something. Because if we wake Ginny up, that'll be twice I've wanted to burst into flames because of your family and you."

Percy had to concede that it was a fair point, as he'd felt much the same way when Ron had caught them. They crept out of the room (Hermione stirred when a floorboard creaked but only mumbled and rolled over) and went downstairs. Halfway down the last flight of stairs, they heard voices, strangely tense and frantic. They sounded as though they were coming from the kitchen.

Once again, Ariane's curiosity might have been her undoing, but luckily nobody was looking her way when she peered around the corner.

It was a silent and yet alarming scene, maybe more so because there was no noise except whispering. Bill was bent over something on the kitchen table, along with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Professor McGonagall, and, to Ariane's shock, Dumbledore, who out of all the people there looked the most troubled by the bloody bundle before him. Ariane leaned a little farther forward and Percy grabbed the back of her nightshirt, stopping her from revealing herself by falling over.

"When did you find her?" Dumbledore asked Bill, eyes very grave behind his oblong glasses. "And where?"

"Just past two thirty this morning," Bill replied, sounding as though he'd told this story at least twice. "She was at the edge of the wood, barely a mile away from here. It looked like she had dragged herself a good way before passing out." One of his long-fingered hands pushed his loose hair back, and the briefest patch of light illuminated a swollen, bruised face slashed with cuts and scratches. If there hadn't been a bit of bronze-colored hair that was still clean and blood-free, Ariane would never have known who it was.

"Professor Connor!" she whispered to Percy, who was leaning in above her. "She's been killed!"

"No, just beaten to a bloody pulp, or at least that's what it looks like," he replied softly.

"It's awful," Professor McGonagall barked, her normally brisk voice positively choking on emotion. "Albus, what could she have done?" She looked nearly as disheveled as Bill, her gray-streaked dark hair falling out of her normally tight bun and her robes were wrinkled and looked as though they'd been slept in.

Dumbledore hesitated. "While Angharad was lucid, she seemed to think that Lucius found out some of her family connections as well as the fact that she apparently attacked him in the woods."

"What?" Mrs. Weasley burst out. "Had she run mad?"

"No, she was protecting your son," Dumbledore said heavily, "And did so very well. Lucius Malfoy is a madman now, though he was before now—at least before he had some restraint." He cast a significant look at Professor McGonagall. "It seems that your brother-in-law revealed to a certain Narcissa Malfoy that Angharad was his daughter."

Professor McGonagall swore viciously. "How dare he?" she snapped, her face going quite red. "After all he put his own daughter through, how could he betray her position to the Death Eaters?"

"He has joined the Death Eaters, and thus met Angharad working for Lucius when she had last told him that she was working for me. Patrick Connor may be many undesirable things, but he isn't stupid." Dumbledore's gaze was flinty, and Ariane hoped that Patrick Connor knew what was coming. She hoped he was wetting himself right now, because if he wasn't he was a fool indeed.

Professor McGonagall began to make a violent gesture, then stopped herself, pulled herself to her full height, and murmured icily, "I assume that my niece was being punished more for double-crossing than for the attack on Malfoy."

_Ah, there's the resemblance,_ Ariane thought to herself. _That steel, except in Professor it's turned about to be almost vengeful in a controlled way, and in Professor McGonagall it stands for nothing but right._

Angharad Connor stirred on the table, one of her hands lifting weakly to make a familiar dismissive gesture. Ariane nearly gagged—all her fingers were bent crookedly at places no joints were, her thumb was completely gone, and her palm was bent backwards as though it had been molded against the corner of a box.

"Someone _is_ coming to aid her, Dumbledore?" Mr. Weasley said, entering the conversation for the first time. "A Healer?"

"Smethwick," Dumbledore named the Healer, "But he cannot leave St. Mungos unobtrusively until four o'clock."

"That's over an hour!" McGonagall burst out, and then caught herself again. "Is there anything I can do?"

Dumbledore laid a hand on her shoulder. "Wait, Minerva. I have something I must tell you. Something I must tell you all."

Mr. Weasley and Bill went and pulled up chairs for Mrs. Weasley and Professor McGonagall, then got chairs for themselves and Dumbledore. Bill passed so close to Ariane that she could have touched him, but so far she and Percy had remained unnoticed. Ariane was vastly curious about this disturbing and altogether unforeseen situation unfolding in front of her and strained to listen as Dumbledore began to talk.

"What I'm about to tell you must remain absolutely secret," he began, looking each person in the eyes gravely. "It is a confusing and long story, but if you'll have the patience I'll do my best to lay it all out here." Dumbledore laid his hands on either side of Professor Connor's battered and bloody head. "It is a story that our Angharad may have bought with her life." Professor McGonagall shifted but said nothing.

Percy and Ariane exchanged glances. What about Voldemort could possibly be so secret that he was willing to brutally kill someone who uncovered it.

Unconsciously, Ariane looked back at the winding staircase. At the top of those stairs was a boy who had brought Voldemort to the edge of death and could do it again. Just beneath the attic, there was a boy Voldemort would stop at nothing to kill. She shivered.

* * *

_Author's Note: _

_This chapter was delayed by many things, the first and foremost being that the heat to my house is rather patchy and my computer is in an icy room, and I have mild arthritis in my hands, wrists, and fingers (runs in the family). I just can't type when it's cold. Thankfully my lovely brother got the idea to cut the fingertips off a pair of old gloves and now I can type without taking four double-strength aspirin first._

_Devilshoes: Gah! would be my noise of mild disgust and exasperation, and it's used entirely incorrectly in my A/N in chapter 9. It's interchangeable with 'gads' or 'argh' or as my father says, 'gahdeffindam'tall' (I try to avoid that one because I don't have his accent). Also, you can review as much as you want, b/c a lot of people don't give me feedback and the only way for me to become a better writer is if people point out stuff I'm doing wrong. Well, I suppose I'd notice eventually, but it's so much easier when people read and say 'hey, this part here—it's awful' so that I don't have to seek it out._

_Review!_


	20. Paradox

"_If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts **

**Chapter 20: Paradox**

"For some time I have known of this, but it was only tonight when I had any real proof of its validity. One of the Death Eaters captured in the Department of Mysteries last summer gave a hint of it when he was questioned with Veritaserum, but he knew so little about it that his information was of no real use to us at that time," Dumbledore began. "We—I—dismissed it as another of Voldemort's plans that would never come to pass. It was too wild, too crazy for even Voldemort to attempt."

"What was crazy, Albus?" Professor McGonagall ground out, her patience obviously worn paper-thin.

"This Death Eater—Nott, his name was—seemed to think that Voldemort was going to try and go back in time and eradicate the major families that had opposed him in his rise. Voldemort's plan was to get rid of my family, the McKinnons, the Prewetts—anyone who stood against him. His main goal, however, is to make sure that Harry Potter never existed. That way, he would have no one powerful enough to oppose his rise to power."

A stunned silence followed this pronouncement, broken only by Professor Connor's labored breathing.

"Are you saying," Bill whispered, "that he's going to try to change time?"

"Change is a rather mild word," McGonagall replied. "He's corrupting it!"

Mrs. Weasley was very pale. "How would he go about destroying families, Dumbledore?" she asked tensely. "It seems like a rather difficult thing to go about."

"Not if you've kept detailed records of your ancestors, like your family and the McKinnons, Molly. Of course, Voldemort must be careful, as your family shares multiple ancestors with a few of his own Death Eaters."

"What about you, Albus?" McGonagall queried. "Surely a family as great as yours must have records?"

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Earlier in my life I made several efforts to collect records of my genealogy, but alas, I believe there to be none. Family legend has it that a distant ancestress destroyed all records of our family in an effort to protect her own descendents."

"Remarkable foresight," McGonagall remarked drolly. Professor Connor made a muffled noise and tried to paw a trickle of blood out of her eye with her mangled hand, then cried out with pain as she put pressure on those broken fingers. With uncharacteristic tenderness, Professor McGonagall redirected the blood around her niece's left eye, which was still half-open.

"Mr. Weasley then, apparently, had an epiphany. "If He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named gets rid of the Prewetts, I'll lose my family! Molly's a Prewett…" he trailed off, leaving the air full of implications.

Ariane swallowed hard and though of Ron, Ginny, Fred and George, Bill—and Percy too—they were all half-Prewett. Not to mention Charlie and his son Jerome, who were also descendent of the Prewett family. The consequences that sprung from Voldemort killing only one or two ancestors were vast.

"Last night, Voldemort opened a portal in time," Dumbledore said gravely. "Angharad was there when he did it, fulfilling her usual position as one of Lucius's bodyguards, and saw all the preparations before she was beaten. Voldemort and seven of his Death Eaters are somewhere in our history now, and what they plan to do is anyone's best guess." Dumbledore stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and then smiled broadly.

Everyone around the table looked at him like he had run mad and told them all he was planning to invest in a wardrobe made entirely of vinyl and carpet Hogwarts with Astroturf. It was Bill who managed at last to choke out, "Why on earth are you smiling?"

"Because he didn't succeed," Dumbledore said simply.

Mr. Weasley cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Really, Dumbledore—this isn't the time for puzzles. It's the early morning and there's a mangled woman on my kitchen table and you just got through telling us how Voldemort's going to obliterate my family in one fell swoop." His mouth made an effort to smile appealingly but he couldn't bring himself to do it. "Just tell us flat out: how do you know this?"

"Well, to start with, we're having this conversation right now," Dumbledore replied, his eyes twinkling once more, but his face very grave. "So that stands to reason the Prewetts and the other families were never wiped out."

Bill put his head in his hands. "I loathe time paradoxes."

McGonagall tucked her frazzled hair back into its accustomed knot as her forehead furrowed in thought. "The real paradox is where Voldemort went, and what stopped him from succeeding?"

"What if You-Know-Who just made a mistake with the time and appeared in the middle of a battle?" Bill offered. "That would finish him off, and the Death Eaters, and they'd never return."

Mr. Weasley made a dissenting noise. "I don't think he'd make a mistake. Changing time is a very shifty business, but going back can be calculated precisely." Dumbledore nodded in agreement.

"How would we get rid of him, then?" Mrs. Weasley asked desperately. "We don't know when he went, or where, for that matter."

"Do you know, Albus?" Minerva asked sharply, her gray eyes flicking to the Headmaster. "Did Angharad tell you anything?"

"No, I don't know," Dumbledore told her, "And I don't think Angharad knows either. But there is someone who knows the where and the when." His eyes passed over Mr. Weasley's head and looked straight at the side of the doorway where Ariane and Percy were hiding. Everyone else turned to stare too. Ariane swallowed very hard and waited until Dumbledore ordered her out.

"Ariane, I know that you're there. That mind-trick you used on me at Hogwarts reaches both ways," Dumbledore said cheerily. "I can sense you as well as you sense me."

Percy gripped her shoulder and gave her a questioning look. Ariane sighed, shook her head and indicated he should stay where he was, and stepped down from the fireplace hearth and into the kitchen. "Sorry," she told the four adults and Bill, "I was awake and heard voices." She didn't look down at the table, but instead met Dumbledore's blue eyes.

"Do you know when Voldemort will go?" he asked her.

Ariane bit her lip. "No," she said after a short pause. "Not specifically."

"Come here."

She obeyed hesitatingly, aware that Dumbledore thought she was lying and also that she was telling the truth. Where Voldemort was going was as much of a mystery as the next day's weather. Ariane knew that she wasn't a Seer. The Headmaster put his hands out when she reached him and placed his hands on either side of her head, as though he were going to kiss her forehead or bless her or something. His hands were wrinkled and soft, like tanned leather.

"This won't hurt," he said softly, and, almost imperceptibly, Ariane felt her thoughts begin to slide just as they did when Harry pried about for information. It took effort not to shove back. To her surprise, her dreams surfaced, all of the variations on the single theme: death. There were around seven in all, six ending with Ariane's death, the seventh with the beheading of a dark-haired person. A few others she hadn't though of were also mixed in: the few dreams she had had about running through a wood, away from something terrifying or being pursued, she couldn't tell which.

A headache began behind her eyes, then, suddenly; Dumbledore was standing next to her in the snow, watching the dream-Ariane scramble away from the axe man through the snow.

"None of those are right," Ariane burst out, her voice sounding hollow. "They're all the ways it shouldn't happen."

"What do you mean?" he asked her, peering up at the man as he brought his axe down on the dream-girl's neck with bone-slicing force.

"Well, in almost all of these, I die," she sputtered. "Is that what's supposed to happen?" The scene flipped, and they gliding along beside the silver-haired runner as she dashed madly through the woods. Ariane folded her unreal-arms over her chest and tried not to frown. _I don't want to die._

Dumbledore shrugged and stroked his beard. "I would not assume to know your fate, Ariane," he said thoughtfully, "But I would not have you resign yourself to one of these just yet."

Dumbledore lowered his hands from her temples and Ariane opened her eyes. McGonagall was staring at them both with her mouth slightly open, though she closed it immediately. Mrs. Weasley said in hushed tones, "Does she always glow like that?" Ariane looked down at her arms and discovered that they did have a fading silver glow. As she watched, the light disappeared into her skin.

"Only when her thoughts are being read," Dumbledore smiled tightly. "I think, for now at least, we shall assume that we do not know when Voldemort has gone, but Ariane seems to be dreaming up possibilities that may add up to an exact time and place."

"I know when it is," a voice said from the living room. Six sets of eyes, two blue, one gray, one hazel, one brown, and one violet, all snapped to a thin boy still in his striped pajamas. Angharad, who looked as though only one of her eyes would work properly even if it weren't swollen shut, waved a left hand sans thumb in an infantile way.

"Harry?" Ariane asked blankly.

"What are you doing out of bed?" queried Mrs. Weasley in an equally bewildered but also maternal way.

"Sir, I don't know if Ariane told you this, but while she was still in Slytherin House she found her brother's old workshop," Harry said quickly, as though afraid Ariane would head him off. "And in it were all these really weird things, like instruments and a Pensive and papers, and she found the paper that told how Salazar Slytherin had raised her from the dead, and it had the name of her father on it but she didn't make it that far,"—he took a deep breath—"because she didn't want to know how Slytherin had killed anyone. She tried to throw it away, but I took it while she was helping Tuyet Qui-Minh back up the stairs. Sir."

Ariane blinked at him stupidly. _Of course Harry would have picked it up,_ she berated herself,_ he wouldn't be able to just let it sit without knowing all the gory details._

"Do you have this letter?" Dumbledore said sharply.

"It's not really a letter, more like a journal entry—but I do," Harry affirmed, cutting his reply short under Professor McGonagall's stare. He held up a piece of paper that had been crumpled, folded, and stuffed in a pocket. He unfolded it and walked by Ariane to give it to Dumbledore, making sure to give her a wide berth. Dumbledore took it, smoothed it on the table, and indicated with a vague gesture that Harry should stand near Ariane.

Harry still looked afraid of her, but Ariane wasn't really angry. She was sure Dumbledore would have found out sooner or later, and if the case was this serious—if what had happened to Professor Connor could happen to others—she preferred sooner. She also couldn't really blame Harry for being his nosy, prying self, even if she did wish he would warn her before he pulled stunts like this. Experimentally, she gave him a small smile. He looked surprised, but smiled back.

Dumbledore read the paper hand over hand, his eyes flashing back and forth at a speed twice that of Hermione's. His lined face was expressionless until he got to the bottom of the page, which Ariane hadn't read. His eyebrows contracted and he glanced up at Ariane, then at Harry.

"Have you read this?" he asked, his voice very tight. Ariane shook her head, but Harry nodded. "Do you know what it means?" Harry shook his head.

"What does it say, Albus?" Professor McGonagall demanded.

"Salazar Slytherin goes through the whole process of resurrecting a human, down to the most minute detail. He worries excessively that—and I quote—'my dear sister may be robbed of the one joy of womanhood—childbirth' and wonders if necromancy interferes with pregnancy." Dumbledore's blue eyes fell on Ariane, who turned bright red not only because the last thing she wanted to discuss with her teachers and her friend's parents was her period, but because Harry and Percy were listening too.

"He also speaks of his father, who seemed to have been living in the southwest of England," Dumbledore continued blithely. "Salazar doesn't do a very commendable job of explaining how he found him, and never uses his real name, referring to him as 'the Draconigen' multiple times. He also has a few riddles among this information, including a lot of synonyms for 'riddle' and 'greed'." He got to the very bottom of the page, the part that had surprised him before. "Salazar claims that he didn't kill his father. He refers to a troop of 'unholy forest-dwellers' that, for some reason, wanted the Draconigen dead, and specifically to a girl and boy. The boy is dismissed as 'a dark-haired trollop, probably another of the Draconigen's bastards' and the girl is 'obviously a mere vision sent to spur me on in my weakening moments'."

Ariane could barely breathe. All of her dreams, every single one, took place at the edge of a wood, with a group of people she knew from the present time period. 'Unholy forest-dwellers'. Inwardly she smiled at Salazar's description.

Then Dumbledore read out the sentence written at the bottom of the page, the sentence Ariane had written herself in bold black ink.

"Percy sees truth about," he paused, and then looked at the final word at the bottom of the page. "Riddle," he finished, and everyone around the table exchanged looks of confusion or understanding or worry.

"Percy knows the answer to a riddle?" Bill asked, very confused.

"What does this have to do with my son?" Mrs. Weasley demanded at the same time, a quaver in her voice.

"It may not refer to your Percy," McGonagall reassured her. "After all, this was written before his time. Wasn't it?"

"Oh, I have no doubt that this was written in Salazar Slytherin's time," Dumbledore said lightly, his gaze passing from Ariane to Harry and back again, then passing them by to fix on the doorway where Percy was standing, just out of sight. "But I have a sneaking suspicion that a few of the people in Salazar's account were not of his time."

"Riddle's a person," Percy said from the other side of the room, obviously deciding not to wait until Dumbledore called him out. "Not a puzzle."

As always, when he was around his family he was a little stiff, holding himself different and apart. The more time Ariane spend around Percy the less she understood his duplicity. She liked his family—well, Fred and George were borderline—and didn't understand what could have made Percy grow up so different from all of them or make him dislike them. She filed it away and pulled her attention back to the present.

"How do you know?" Bill asked.

Percy shrugged and tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "I just do. Riddle must be a person's name, otherwise why would Slytherin have tried to hide it with all those synonyms?"

Professor McGonagall inhaled sharply, and everyone turned to stare at her. "Tom Riddle," she half-whispered. "I went to school with a boy called Tom Riddle."

"Tom Riddle _is_ Voldemort," Harry blurted. Everyone in the room but Dumbledore and Ariane jumped and twisted to look at him. Angharad, who had been nearly forgotten, made a burbling noise and tried to pull herself to a sitting position, her good eye wide open. Gently Professor McGonagall held her down, her stern face chalk-white.

Dumbledore turned to Ariane, his face grave and yet—amused? "Ariane, do you understand where this is going?"

She blinked, then inhaled sharply and pressed a hand to her temple. "God," she whispered. "It's horrible." Percy had made the connection too, judging by the horrified look on his face. The room twirled around her slowly, as though she were standing in the middle of some sick carousel.

Mr. Weasley was the first to say it. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "That You-Know-Who went back in time and fathered his own ancestors?"

"What?" Mrs. Weasley cried, completely disgusted.

"Let's not make a bunch of hasty assumptions," Bill protested weakly.

"Yes," Dumbledore cut him off flatly, still watching Ariane's face. "Salazar and Ariane Slytherin are both children of Voldemort." Harry swore very badly.

At this point, Ariane meant to say something. Protest her innocence, proclaim her disgust, or perhaps ask for a glass of water. Instead she saw only a cold gray fog as she passed out with a thump on the Weasley's kitchen floor.

She dreamt of flying, the swift and silent flight of winged horses. Ariane had her fingers twined in the silky mane of a palomino mare, its speckled white neck inches from her nose as she flew over the sea. Around her swooped other winged horses, a veritable herd of flying horseflesh, all the colors imaginable. Ariane relaxed and peered down, seeing the rough waves and the silver glints that were fish. Once she saw a boat, the fishermen stunned by the herd above them, and she laughed at the expressions of the men as they dropped that day's catch back into the sea.

A huge old mare with copper wings swooped by, its withers streaked with sweat, also bearing a rider on its back. It was a small boy, blonde-haired, his face full of wonder. He clung on with one hand because his other was heavily bandaged.

"Where away?" Ariane called over the wind.

The boy smiled. "Back home!" he replied. "Come with me!"

"I can't," Ariane shouted as the wind grew louder. "I don't know where I'm going!"

"That's odd. It was your idea to flee on horseback."

Suddenly the world flipped and the wind screamed, and Ariane was lying in bed in her nightshirt and trousers. She opened her eyes warily and found herself barely two inches away from Percy's sleeping face. He had apparently been sitting on the floor next to her bed in Ginny's room and fallen asleep leaning on the mattress. His face had once again taken on that boyish quality it had when he was sleeping; the few pockmarks barely visible in his freckled skin. His coppery eyelashes made twin crescents beneath his eyelids, and his mouth was open slightly, as though he'd fallen asleep talking to her.

He was different and yet the same. Ariane studied his face hard, as though she would never see it again. There was no doubt in her mind that _this_ man was the one she loved, but he was different than the man she'd loved when she was a girl at Hogwarts. _I've changed,_ she reasoned,_ I'm hardly that innocent little creature anymore. It makes sense that Laramy would have changed too. I'm shell-shocked instead of ignorant, he's one person around me and another around his family…_

Percy frowned at a dream he was having and then exhaled softly, his face going still again.

Ariane smiled despite herself and reached out a hand to smooth his hair, letting herself drink in the unique sensation; it was coarser than her own and slightly springy to the touch. Still in the thrall of her dream, she continued her caress down the side of his face—he wasn't wearing his glasses—and past the seashell curve of his ear to his neck, then back up along his jaw and, briefly, up the curve of his nose. Softly, so that she wouldn't wake him up, Ariane leaned in the two inches and kissed him lightly on the mouth.

"Can I pretend I'm still asleep?" Percy murmured, opening one blue-green eye and gazing fuzzily at Ariane. "Not that that wasn't the best way to wake up I can think of."

"I didn't mean to wake you up," Ariane apologized, rolling onto her side and propping her head on her left arm. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm glad I was at least partially awake to experience it," Percy replied, "Otherwise I would have been afraid it was only a dream. Then I wouldn't have let myself wake up." He straightened up and winced, rubbing a crick in his neck. "What happened? Why did you faint?"

"Believe me, I didn't plan on passing out," Ariane muttered, slightly ashamed. "Took me entirely by surprise. How long was I out?"

"It's about nine o'clock," Percy said, squinting at his watch. "Don't quote me on that, though. These numbers are far too little for me to read."

Ariane looked at his watch. "It's a quarter after six. Your watch is on upside-down." She propped herself up and saw that Hermione and Ginny were both out of their beds. "Where's everybody?"

"Mum sent them upstairs, told them you were sick. She didn't want them to come downstairs until that Healer had seen to Angharad." He swallowed visibly. "He saw to you too, but he said the best thing to do was to make sure you were comfortable and wait for you to wake up."

"Is Professor Connor going to be all right?" Ariane asked him, lying back down. She did feel a little groggy, but she wasn't sure if that was because she'd just woken up or because she'd hit her head on the kitchen table going down.

Percy reached out to stroke her hair. "The Healer said she'll be back to teaching by tomorrow, but it took him an hour just to fix all the broken bones. I think he said she's lost one eye for good, and maybe a finger or two. Otherwise, she'll be fine." He smiled at her in a way that was meant to be encouraging, but he only looked worried.

"What's wrong?" Ariane asked, covering his hand with hers. "You look sad."

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking a lot like his father. "Budge up," he requested, and she complied, scooting over so that he could lie next to her. Ariane rested her cheek on his shoulder and inhaled, loving the way he smelled—clean and warm, with a slight vanilla undertone that she suspected came from crouching on Ginny's floor for a few hours.

"I'm afraid," he whispered, his breath stirring the hair on the top of her head. "I'm scared that I'll lose you again."

"I'm not going anywhere," Ariane replied.

"What if you don't have a choice?" Percy asked, slightly desperately. "What if you've got to go to save the world?"

She laughed, though a little bitterly. "Percy, I think that Harry's the one who does the world-saving, not me." She smiled up at him, and he grinned weakly back. "Don't worry about me."

"That's something I can't do," he said, squeezing her a little tighter around the shoulders.

They lay in silence for a few more minutes, and then Ariane spoke the question that had been lingering in her mind for days. "Percy," she paused, unsure of how to ask, then blurted: "Do you love your family?"

He twisted awkwardly to look down at her. "Yes. Why?"

Ariane shrugged. "I don't know…you seem like you want to stay away from them as much as you can. It just seems a bit odd to me, that's all."

"You can love people and not like them," Percy said stiffly.

"But why?" Ariane persisted.

Percy held very still for a moment, and then shifted so that he was lying on his side. "I suppose," he said slowly, "That ever since I can remember, I was lumped in with my family. I was 'a Weasley' and half the time people got me mixed up with Bill or Charlie or George. I never felt like a unique person, just a part of some collective batch of notorious red-heads."

Ariane nodded. _This is what made him different_, she decided. _This is what makes him different than Laramy Ferrer. Laramy never had to prove himself, he just _was_ the sort of person that Percy would be if he had been born to another family._

"When I got to Hogwarts, I finally had a change to prove that I wasn't a clone of my older brothers. I don't remember when I started trying too hard," he admitted. "Last year it all sort of came to a boil and I went on a rage at my father, angry that I couldn't escape my family, angry that no matter how hard I tried to separate myself from my family they were always right there waiting in my shadow."

He was very tense. Ariane smoothed an errant curl back from his temple. "I'm sorry I asked," she told him. "You don't need to tell me all this, you know."

"You should know," Percy replied, sounding slightly irritated. "I wouldn't want you to love me if you didn't really know me, warts and all."

She smiled, ducking her head so that he wouldn't see. "Any more warts I should know about?" she asked.

"I could ask the same."

Ariane frowned a little. "All right," she muttered, thinking. "What do you hate? I hate sour things," she told him. "And I put sugar in almost everything, including vegetables and spaghetti."

He laughed. She could hear it start in his chest and erupt from his throat like a bubble in water. "Okay," he smiled. "I hate wearing glasses. I always lose them and then I can't see anything, and I can't find them either. For example, right now I can hardly tell what I'm looking at."

"Me," Ariane informed him. "Your turn to ask a question."

"What's your favorite color?"

She made a face at him, forgetting he couldn't see. "Blue," she told him. "What's yours?"

"Green." Percy trailed a finger down her face, tracing the arc of her right eyebrow lightly. "Your turn."

"Er…do you like flying?" she asked, thinking of her winged horse dream.

"I hate broomsticks," he emphasized. "I never felt secure enough on one to really enjoy myself."

"I've never been on a broomstick," Ariane mused. "I've ridden a flying horse though."

"Really?" Percy asked with interest. "What was it like?" He twisted and grouped around on the floor for a second and came up with his glasses. After he hooked them around his ears, his sea-green eyes came into focus. "Was it scary?"

"At first," Ariane said, her mind flashing back to Caelestis and Godric and Salazar. "But then it was just beautiful. There's nothing like it in the world—its like growing wings and riding a horse at the same time. It's like going to heaven. Though, now that I think on it, I suppose if you aren't used to riding horses it would be quite a different experience."

"I would want a saddle," Percy muttered staunchly. She giggled. "Is it my turn?"

She frowned and cast back. "I think so."

He shifted so that he was looking right into her eyes. "In your opinion, what's your worst flaw?" he asked, very serious.

Ariane thought about refusing to answer, then realized she didn't even know what she would say. She frowned and bit her lip, then leaned back against Percy's shoulder and sighed. "There's too many to chose from," she demurred.

"I'll tell you mine," Percy offered. "I'm an asshole." She shook her head, but he stopped her with a gentle hand under her chin. "I am. I know that I am. When I'm around you, I get shamed into being a better person, but before I met you I was a pompous jerk."

"Percy," she protested. "You can't have been that bad."

"I _was_," he said ferociously, and Ariane actually started away, scared by the viciousness in his voice. "Last year I wrote a letter to Ron, telling him to stay away from Harry. I wrote it even though I knew Ron and Harry were the best of friends, I wrote it even though I knew Ron would show it to Harry. It was a petty, mean letter and I convinced myself while I was writing it that I was doing it for Ron's good." He shook his head. "I wasn't. I was doing it for my own good; I did it because people I worked with knew that Ron and Harry were friends and that Harry was nearly a part of my family. Don't you see?" he asked desperately, turning to her. "I wasn't a good person before we met and I'm not even sure I'm a good person now…Ariane, I don't _deserve_ this."

A question that had been pacing like a tiger in the back of Ariane's mind leaped from her lips. "Were you ever approached by the Death Eaters?" she asked. She had never felt more serious in her life, as though her next breath depended on his answer.

He shifted uncomfortably. "I was," he admitted. "I wouldn't have joined willingly, of course—but I entertained fancies about it. I thought about how powerful Death Eaters are—how their name makes people shiver. But I knew that they would kill my family, and I couldn't have lived with that on my soul."

"Professor Connor told me that there's nothing more dangerous in the world than being the loved one of a possible Death Eater," Ariane told Percy, still quite grave.

"She's almost right," Percy said with a bitter laugh. "The only thing more dangerous than that is to be the loved one of a possible Death Eater _and_ the friend of Harry Potter."

His face looked so hard-edged, so very cold and unlike any expression Ariane had seen on Percy before, that she sat up so that she wouldn't be so near it. Percy sat up too, his face altering to guilt and hurt. "Ariane," he pleaded. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He looked like he was on the verge of tears.

"Why are you sorry?" she shot back. "You told the truth. What more could I ask?" Her hands were rubbing her arms unconsciously, as though she were cold.

"I didn't mean to scare you. I don't want you to be afraid of me." He reached out hesitantly and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't be afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid of you," Ariane told him honestly. "I'm terrified of what you could become."

"I shouldn't have told you—" Percy muttered to himself, but Ariane cut him off.

"No," she murmured back. "I want to know everything about you. I just want to learn it slowly so that it takes a very long time. I want you to love me despite myself."

"Ariane, you haven't got any glaring flaws," he said with exasperation. "You're practically perfect."

"I'm a coward," she shot back. "I didn't confront my brother about his dabbling in the Dark Arts. I didn't stop Pansy from trying to gouge out Tuyet's eyes. I never told Salazar—I never told him that I loved Laramy." Her voice cracked. "If only I could have mustered the courage to speak up, it would have been so much different."

Percy gripped her shoulders. "Let me tell you a secret," he said, then leaned in close so that his lips were an inch from her ear. "_Everyone_ can be a coward." She frowned at him, but he persisted. "_Everyone_ can be brave. _Everyone_ can be hardworking, or compassionate, or whatever you like. Some people just have to work harder at it, you know."

"I have a hard time believing that Harry could ever be a coward, or that Voldemort could ever be compassionate," Ariane remarked dryly. "People can't help what they are."

"There's this thing called a Golden Mean," Percy said. Ariane made an irritated noise and made to move away but he held her still, his glasses an inch from her eyes. "To have achieved it means that you have no distinguishing characteristics. You are just as brave as you are cowardly, just as compassionate as you are ruthless. I don't know about you, but that Golden Mean always sounded to me like a working definition of a boring person."

"You're saying that if we were all perfect we would be boring?"

"I don't know about perfect, but yes." He kissed her lightly on the cheek. "I love you because you are smart and lovely and loyal, and I wouldn't love you less if you were the most cowardly creature in the world." Leaning to one side, he kissed her other cheek. "I've loved you for lifetimes."

"You can love people and not like them," Ariane echoed him softly, feeling rather young and forlorn.

"That's true," he allowed. "But I feel as though I don't know you very well yet. Liking would be presumptuous."

"And declaring your undying passion isn't?" Ariane demanded, but she was smiling. "I think you're mixed up."

"Undying passionate love shouldn't be kept under wraps," Percy said, so very seriously that she actually began to laugh. "Undying passions should be broadcast on radios and burned in fiery letters in the sky. Liking should be slower. More private."

"I'll keep my eyes open for those fiery letters," she giggled, tickled by the sudden mental image of Percy in hose and a tunic, professing his 'undying passionate love' to herself dressed as Juliet on a balcony. (_Romeo and Juliet_ was, of course, after Ariane's time, but she had read it at Ginny's advice.)

Percy had moved in to kiss her—and not on the cheek, either—when a throat cleared behind them.

_Author's Note: Gah, I had to cut it off there, otherwise this chapter would have been about 10,000 words long because...uh, because I was on a roll I guess. Lol. Okay, insert the usual review spiel here, and read the review written by _Something Washed Ashore_. It is like the uber-review. I can'tbelieve someone put that much thought into a review(!) and though I don't really expect all reviews to be that long and detailed that one was the biggest inspiration for me._

_Ariane's name can be pronounced two ways that I've found: Aree-ahn (the anglicized version) and Ah-ree-ah-nee. I don't really know which one I prefer, but I usually use the first (and much less pretty) pronunciation. You can use whichever floats your boat, or make up a new one. Tell me what you've been pronouncing it as!_


	21. Cards and Letters

"_If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 21: Cards and Letters**

Ariane started so badly she nearly fell off the bed. Percy straightened up, half his hair on end, and smiled politely, his face slowly turning a pink to match Ariane's. "Hello, Professor," he said clearly. "Is everything all right?"

Dumbledore smiled, equally polite. "I believe so, though your mother may think otherwise. If you two wouldn't mind coming downstairs, we're having a short meeting over breakfast. Good morning, Ariane."

"Good morning," she replied faintly, trying to pull on a sweater over her thin nightshirt casually and failing.

Dumbledore looked at her just long enough to make her horribly uncomfortable, then looked back at the ceiling and smiled again. "I'll wait for you two downstairs," he said, his voice even as he walked out.

Ariane put a hand to her steaming face and muttered, "That man manages to pick the _worst_ times to walk into a room."

Percy grimaced in agreement, then straightened his collar, patted his hair, and tried without success to smooth the creases out of his pants. "He does have a gift that way," he said with a slightly ironic smile. He bent and kissed her very lightly on the lips. "We should go see what he wants."

What Dumbledore wanted, it seemed, was to go over the situation with everyone in the Order, plus all the younger Weasleys but Ginny (who Mrs. Weasley had taken firmly upstairs as Percy and Ariane descended), Harry, Hermione, and a middle-aged man called Augustus Croaker. Ariane vaguely recognized the name.

"For those who have just come in, this is Augustus Croaker, my good friend and an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries. Croaker works in the time travel and history section of the department." Croaker, who was shorter, balding, and had round, rather protuberant green eyes, smiled and nodded.

Ariane realized she knew who Croaker was, even if she'd never met him before. It was Croaker who had sent Dumbledore that record that had documented the death of Rowena and confirmed that Salazar had killed Ariane. She decided she wouldn't hold it against him.

"Dumbledore, how can he relay any information?" demanded a plump, stately woman in a green shawl. "Unspeakables are _called_ unspeakable because when they agree to work in the Department of Mysteries a charm is placed on them that doesn't allow them to speak about what they know to anyone else."

"We _know_ that," said Tonks irritably. It looked as though she had been on night duty once again and it was not suiting her well. "Hello, Croaker."

He smiled and nodded again. Ariane wondered if he was a fool—or possibly mute.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "I would like to introduce another person to the Order: Ariane Somerled, a friend of Harry Potter's. She possesses an extraordinary gift: she is a natural Legilimens and has vivid dreams of the past."

Several people twisted in their seats to look at Ariane, who was made horribly aware of her snarled hair, her slept-in clothing, and the fact she hadn't taken a shower in at least two days. Percy rested a hand on the small of her back, and she felt a little braver. She met the looks, but most of the Order quickly looked back at Dumbledore again.

Croaker flailed his hands in the air to get attention, then waved his wand in a complicated fashion so that glowing words began to issue from its tip.

_I CANNOT SPEAK TO YOU OF THE MYSTERY OF TIME, BUT IF I WRITE IT UP HERE YOU'LL KNOW AS MUCH AS I DO._

"Brilliant," Hermione muttered under her breath as the letters faded. "A magical loophole."

Croaker began to wave his wand once more. This time the words came thick and fast, so that Ariane was hard put to keep up with them.

_DUMBLEDORE HAS EXPLAINED TO ME THAT IT IS NECESSARY TO SEND MEMBERS OF THE ORDER BACK IN TIME TO STOP YOU-KNOW-WHO AND HIS DEATH EATERS FROM KILLING IMPORTANT WIZARDING FAMILIES BEFORE THEY'RE BORN. THIS CAN BE DONE, BUT THE EXACT COORDINATES WILL BE NEEDED TO TRANSPORT THE GROUP SUCCESSFULLY. DUMBLEDORE SEEMS TO THINK THAT THIS GIRL, ARIANE, CAN BE USED TO FIND THE COORDINATES._

"That's true," Dumbledore added. "Ariane, you have been dreaming of this confrontation, yes?"

"I've been dreaming all the ways it shouldn't happen," Ariane replied, a bit irritated at being referred to like a useful tool. "I don't have anything exact."

_CAN YOU LOOK UP AT THE SKY IN YOUR DREAMS?_ Croaker asked. _USUALLY THE POSITIONS OF THE STARS ARE USED AS A TIME GUIDE._

"I've never tried," she said honestly. "I can try next time."

"Dumbledore, do we have time to wait on the dreams of a girl?" demanded a thin man with rather prominent ears. "How much time do we have?"

"Enough," the old man said, his tone final. "I have faith in this."

"But—but what if I can't see the stars?" Ariane asked, suppressing a nervous quaver in her voice.

Croaker smiled, his round eyes creasing. _THEN YOU WILL BE THE STAR WE GUIDE BY_, his wand wrote. _YOUR DREAMS—YOU REMEMBER THEM ALL?_

Ariane saw where this was going. "Yes," she said warily, her mind full of her six deaths and that ghastly beheading. "Do you want the memories?"

_YOU'RE QUICK_, Croaker wrote with approval, miming applause. _I WOULD LIKE NOTHING BETTER._

Percy's hand tightened on her shoulder, and she glanced sidelong up into his eyes. "Don't promise anything," he whispered.

Ariane ignored him. "I'll need a Pensieve," she told Dumbledore and Croaker. "So you can see it too."

"And some quality sleep," Harry muttered behind her. Ariane suppressed an eye roll with difficulty.

As it turned out, much to Ariane's disgust, Croaker's master plan to help her dream up more possible encounters was to shut Ariane up from everyone else in a shed on the outskirts of the Weasley's property. To be fair, it was a nice shed, with a fireplace and some furniture and her bed from Ginny's room, and she was allowed to leave it if she wanted, but every time Ariane ventured outside she caught the tense, worried mood of the people around her and faced their accusatory glances. 'Why aren't you working on this?' they seemed to say. 'Don't you care?' Well, Ariane knew that most of them didn't think it was her fault—after all, how many of them could sleep on command? Only Mundungus, by her reckoning. But still, she felt that she owed them something that she couldn't repay, so she kept out of sight.

"I'm trying to repay it," she muttered to herself as she paced the packed dirt floor. It was so tramped down that it was almost like stone, and she could only dent it if she pounded the heels of her shoes into the ground—something Ariane tired of after five minutes.

In fact, she was very bored. Nobody came to talk to her, perhaps on Croaker's orders. "I wonder," she said to her only company, a mouse that had probably lived in the shed for its entire life, "If they think that talking to me will influence what I see in my dreams." The mouse's whiskers twitched and it chattered at her.

Ariane beckoned to it from where she lay on her stomach by the fire. "Come here," she told it. "I've got a bit of toast. Its got jam on it." She pulled the rather furry corner of bread from her pocket, broke off a bit, and set it on the floor where the mouse could see it. It didn't hesitate, but scampered over. The mouse looked rather old—it was shaggy-haired, part white and part gray, with beady black eyes and a ragged left ear. Its tail was very long, with a curious tuft of white hair on the end that Ariane had never seen on any other mouse. She laid down another crumb and it came closer, snatched it up, and began chewing industriously, whiskers vibrating as its cheeks worked.

Nearby, Ariane felt someone get near the shed. She'd been practicing her Legilimency while she lay alternately by the fire or paced about, and discovered she had a range of about twenty feet in all directions. That wasn't too impressive, but she had the feeling that, like other things, it might get better with practice.

She knew this mind, though. It was dark and busy, as though someone had turned out the lights in a beehive or a room full of industriously scribbling quills. As she had expected, the door to the shed swung loosely open and admitted nobody, then closed firmly. Her mouse squeaked and ran under the bed.

"Harry, when the wind blows open a door it doesn't close it too," she said idly, glancing back over her shoulder. There was a ripple of empty air a few feet away, and then Harry appeared, looking cold and bothered about something.

"I wish you'd at least pretend to be surprised," he said gruffly. "Then I might give you your letters."

Ariane sat up. "Letters? Who wrote me?"

Harry reached inside his winter cloak and pulled out two letters, one bearing Daphne's round print, the other in Tuyet's cramped script. Ariane held out her hands, but Harry didn't give them to her. "You have to promise me something first."

"I don't know about you, but I think it's a bad idea to promise anything right now," Ariane shot at him, brandishing her hand.

"It's something I know you know. Do you want me to have to dig for it?"

She scowled. "_No_. Fine, we'll talk. Give me the letters and let me read them first." Harry handed them over, and Ariane tore into the first, from Tuyet.

_Ariane—_

_I'm writing you because frankly I think you're the only sane person in the world because you transferred out of this stupid House. Everyone's mad here, and I mean everyone. Pansy's going spare and hexing first years and things because Draco's off and left school. You're probably making a shocked face right now, but that's not the end of it. We haven't gone back to classes yet, obviously, but there's some other Slytherin missing too. Professor Snape apparently either eloped with Draco or decided to move to Bermuda or something else, because I haven't seen him in two days and Draco's been missing for almost a week. Ugh, the idea of Snape in a bathing suit makes my inner eye burn._

_Drat. Pansy's just tried to hex a mirror. Idiot forgot what reflective surfaces do to curses. Salazar Slytherin would shit himself laughing if he could see what his House has come too. But, then again, the sight of Pansy with half her nose cracked off is enough to inspire bitter laughter in anyone. I don't know what her problem is, but I bet it's hard to pronounce._

_This letter has another purpose, besides updating you on Pansy's latest stupidity. I was wondering if you knew what happened to Draco and Snape. I don't know why you would know, but at least you're outside school. And you're with a wizard family that's pretty thick with Dumbledore, and I get the sneaking feeling he knows where they went. It's not a fun feeling. Nott knows something, but he's being irritatingly quiet and gloomy about it. Even Daphne can't make him tell, and Nott's been wild for her for ages. He went home yesterday-his grandfather came and picked him up._

_God damn it, Blaise just got in Pansy's way. If shit were explosive, his head would be like dynamite. I've got to go help him or I'll have to clean up his gory remains with a broom. Hope you had a happy Christmas, and I hope that you and Potter haven't hooked up over break because I'll have to clean up your gory remains too as soon as term starts again. _

_With love from the idiot pit,_

_Tuyet_

Ariane smothered a laugh at the thought of anyone's shit being explosive, and wondered at her sharp-tongued friend's way with cutting words. The rest of the letter made her frown. She wasn't sure what expression these two conflicting thoughts gave her, but it confused Harry.

"What's up?" he asked, for once being polite out loud and mentally. Harry had formed am irritating habit of brushing her mind whenever he asked her anything, as though double-checking for lies. Now Ariane felt no mental touch at all.

"Apparently Draco Malfoy's gone missing," she said lightly. "And so has Snape."

"What?" Harry sputtered. "They've gone? Did she say where?"

"She had a few suggestions including Bermuda and a possible secret romance"—Ariane waited until Harry looked as though he'd overcome his urge to vomit before going on—"but I think that I know what's happened to them. Tuyet says that Snape hasn't been seen for two days." She folded the letter, sharpening each crease with her fingernails, while she waited for Harry to bridge the connection. "Two days, Harry. What's happened in the past two days?"

"God," Harry swore lightly, running a hand through his hair. It was getting out of hand, Ariane noticed, and badly needed cutting. "You don't mean to say that Snape and Malfoy went back in time too?"

She pulled herself into a sitting position. "That's what I thought—but why on earth would either of them do that? I mean, I know that Draco's dad's about as thick with Voldemort as you can get, but why would Snape go too?"

"Snape's a Death Eater," Harry told her, looking surprised that she hadn't known. "Of course he would have been there."

Ariane blinked at him, aware her mouth was hanging open and abruptly closing it. "I feel like an idiot," she muttered to herself. "Harry, I asked him about Death Eaters and Voldemort and other things after I arrived. Because I didn't know. Because everyone knew and they looked at me funny when I didn't know who Voldemort was. And he asked me why I was asking him of all people."

Somehow Harry managed to grasp the general gist of this fragmented confession. "Well, not a lot of people knew, but I thought you'd have guessed. Snape's a slimy git."

"If Voldemort made every slimy git in the world a Death Eater, he wouldn't be able to count his followers."

Harry made a noncommittal noise. "So what if Snape and Malfoy went with Voldemort? It's not that big a difference." He looked at Ariane to see her reaction, then frowned. "What _are_ you doing?" he asked in a bewildered tone.

Ariane had leaned over and was softly but rhythmically thumping her head with her fist. "Thinking," she replied calmly.

_If Snape and Draco both went back in time, then I could find the right time by looking for them in the dreams._ Briefly she paused, her hand resting on her forehead, and scanned her brain to think if she'd seen Snape or Draco in any of them. _No, they haven't been there. Good, now I've got proof that none of my dreams are right. I don't much fancy dying._ She resumed her gentle abuse of herself.

He watched her for about another minute, then requested: "Stop that, will you? It's starting to really scare me."

She complied so that she could open Daphne's letter. It contained nearly the same message as Tuyet's: Draco had gone missing, and Nott seemed very upset about something. Also, in a postscript, she added something that made Ariane raise her eyebrows so high her forehead hurt.

_P.S. You were sent these sometime after holidays began, but for some reason they were just sent to the Slytherin dormitory instead of to wherever you're spending Christmas. Tuyet wanted to play Snap with them, but as they don't explode nobody else saw the fun in it._

Ariane tilted the thick envelope and watched as all the playing cards Madam Pince had given her at the beginning of the term tumbled onto the hard-packed earth. The gaudy painted faces looked blankly back at her, one or two actually standing on edge in the floor due to the Strengthening Spells cast upon them. She picked up the Slytherin cards and looked at them hard. "Harry. What does Voldemort look like?" she demanded in a monotone.

"What?" he asked, shocked. As clearly as though a door had slammed, a mental shield went up behind Harry's green eyes. "Not—not at all like you."

"No, what did he look like when he was young? Tell me, Harry."

"No," he refused flatly. "Dumbledore probably made a mistake. There's no way that Voldemort could be your father."

"There _is_ a way," she snapped. "He went back in time once, got the date wrong, slept with a pretty woman in a nearby town. Tried again, got the date wrong again, fooled around with the same woman. Tried again, got the time right, got killed." Ariane made a final gesture with her hands as though she were chopping something. "It's pretty simple, Harry."

"Time travel is anything but simple," he shot back. "I'll tell you what he looked like," he offered, "but you've got to answer a question for me afterwards."

"What?"

Harry shook his head, his black eyebrows drawn down in a stubborn scowl that reminded Ariane painfully of her older brother as a teenager. "Agree to it," he ordered.

Curiosity struggled with apprehension and won. "All right. Show me."

As if by some cue, they both shut their eyes. Ariane tried to clear her brain in preparation, but only succeeded in stirring up her already muddled thoughts into a whirlpool. Harry took a deep breath and, suddenly, Salazar appeared in Ariane's head.

Well, after the first glance, he wasn't Salazar, but the likeness was shocking. Tom Riddle was tall, slender, and fairly good-looking. His dark hair was cut short, where Salazar's had been left long, and his eyes were a slate blue where Salazar's were darkest violet, but that bridled defiance, the gleam in their eyes, was so identical that Ariane shivered. She tilted her head; eyes still closed, and compared Tom Riddle's face with her own. Salazar had been right when he said that Ariane resembled their mother, Arsinoë, more than their father, but the shape of her eyes was indeed the same as Tom's, and her arched cheekbones seemed to have an influence from her father's strong bones rather than her mother's smooth oval shape.

She opened her eyes, not sure if she was happy to finally know who her father was or not. All her life she'd lived in the shadow of a title that hadn't been her making: _bastard_. Now, Ariane supposed, she _could_ take her father's true surname. She would rather have her fingernails pulled out than do it, though.

Harry was looking at her, a hungry expression in his eyes. "My turn," he said, and Ariane's stomach dropped with fear of Harry's curiosity. "Am I going to die?"

Halfway through recoiling, Ariane froze and cricked her neck. "Ouch. What?" she asked, confused. "How would I know that?"

"You're having dreams about it," he pressed. "One of those dreams has to be right."

An icy fist closed around Ariane's throat as she tasted a spray of blood, saw a dark-haired head roll across the frozen mud at the edge of the wood. "I haven't had the right dream yet," she said hoarsely. "Besides," she attempted a cheerful grin, "If my dreams were prophecies you would be playing your next Quidditch match against snowmen made of custard."

"You're a dreadful liar, and you don't have dreams like that. You told me you've never had a normal dream."

"What? When?" she demanded, irritated. Ariane knew that she turned red when she lied, usually, but that time she hadn't blushed at all.

"Just before Christmas, when we were playing Truth or Consequence with Ginny and the twins," Harry explained. "You said that so you wouldn't have to drink whatever was in that bottle."

"Oh," Ariane said, remembering the bottle of suspiciously shifting brown and purple bubbles that Fred had procured as the punishment for a lie in the game of Truth or Consequence they had played on Christmas Eve. It had seemed quite innocent at the time, for Ginny to ask what Ariane dreamed of, but now she had the sneaking suspicion that Ginny and Harry had plotted out this scene ahead of time. "You bastard," she accused without any real anger. In his place she would probably have done the same, and she admired his subtlety in any case. Subtlety was not Harry's strong point.

"I'm not the only one," Harry pointed out. She glared at him and he looked away. "Sorry. Forgot that it had already been pointed out."

"What would you do if you knew you were fated to die?" she shot back, trying to put him off balance. "You'd probably just try to avoid it."

"I would not!" he protested.

"What about Ron? Or Hermione, or Ginny, or one of your other friends? What about then?" He flinched as she spat each name at him. "I can't tell you anything about what's going to happen, Harry, because you'll try to change it. It's in your nature, you can't help being a stupid hero."

"I don't know why the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor," Harry half-shouted, slamming his fists into the ground. "You're the most heartless person I've ever had the misfortune to be friends with."

"There's a difference between heartlessness and practically, _Potter_," Ariane yelled back, jumping to her feet. "I want to end all this trouble and I'll be damned if you're going to mess it up for everyone because you feel some crazy obligation to Dumbledore to kill Voldemort."

"I don't have some crazy obligation," Harry snarled, also getting to his feet. Though Ariane knew she was the taller of the two, somehow Harry seemed to be bigger in his rage. "There was a prophecy made that either Voldemort will kill me or I'll kill him, and I've had it hanging over my head for months and I'm _sick_ of waiting for some big final confrontation or whatever's coming." He was breathing hard, his green eyes positively sparking with rage and frustration, like a caged young lion within moments of freedom—or death at the hands of a gladiator.

Ariane swallowed hard. "I told you the truth, Harry. I don't know what's going to happen yet. In most of my dreams so far, I'm the one who dies, but there is one—there is one were you might have died. I don't know for sure." Her mouth felt like she'd been drinking vinegar. "Any of us _could_ die, but it seems you and I are the most likely to go."

Harry took this in and nodded, rubbing his face with an unsteady hand. "What about Ron and Hermione?" he asked in a quieter voice. "Are they going to die?"

"Not by what I've seen so far," Ariane replied, choosing not to tell him about the dream where Hermione had killed her. "I've never seen Ron in any of the dreams."

He took a deep breath, and then faced her squarely. "Ariane, are you waiting for a dream that shows you _not _dying?"

"Am I trying to save my own skin, you mean?" Her temper flared again. "I must admit that I don't much fancy dying, but then again I don't know anyone who does. Unless they're insane. Or stupid. Or heroic."

"Well that last one rules you out," Harry said maliciously.

Ariane shrieked in rage and stomped her bare foot down hard so that she wouldn't be tempted to bash Harry's head open against the mantle. Unluckily, her foot came down on the edge of the seven of clubs and the reinforced edge of the card sliced open the sole of her foot nearly to the bone. She bit back a squeal of pain and hopped on the spot, and then sat down more carefully, avoiding the dangerous playing cards.

"Sorry!" Harry exclaimed, kneeling down with equal care for the cards. "Wow, that's some deck of cards."

"Bloody," Ariane swore with disgust. "Well, I suppose that's rather accurate." Her foot was leaking blood at an alarming rate. "Ugh, I'd better go up to the house and get someone to look at this."

Harry offered her his shoulder to lean on, which was nice of him considering that Ariane had been ready to smash his head like an overripe watermelon a minute before. It was something Godric Gryffindor would have done. She hobbled out, leaving a trail of bloody footprints.

"Harry," she panted, halfway to the Burrow, having just remembered something she'd been meaning to ask away from everyone else. "What do you know about your family?"

"Very little," he said shortly. "My mum was Muggle-born and my dad was a pureblood. My dad's parents both died before I was born."

Ariane summoned her fuzzy mental image of Harry's parents—she'd seen pictures of them before. "Your mother had green eyes too, didn't she?" she queried.

"Yes."

"Was she the only witch in her family?"

"Yes," Harry ground out, obviously wishing that he could be done with this conversation. "Why do you care?"

"Well, in all likelihood your family could be directly descended from Godric Gryffindor," she said lightly, wincing as her bleeding foot made contact with a buried obstacle of some kind.

Harry nearly let her drop. "What?" he asked, nonplussed. "How would you know?"

"I don't. Your eyes just look rather the same as Godric's wife." _And my brother cursed Godric's family to be Muggles until his heir came to kill Gryffindor's heir._ The curse that Salazar had scribbled out before the Furies came for him lay folded and quiet inside Ariane's school trunk, but the one who was referred to in it might be helping her across the yard right now. Ariane had meant to tell Harry about the curse, but after hearing that he was already the subject of a prophecy she doubted it would be kind of her to tell him he was possibly the subject of a curse too.

Harry shrugged it off. "I'm probably not, but it's kind of cool to think about." Even so, the corners of his mouth lifted a little as he pushed the Weasley's kitchen door open with his foot.

"Oh my God!" shrieked Mrs. Weasley at once. "What happened? Is anyone else hurt? Ariane, are you all right?" She bustled over and nearly lifted Ariane off the floor. As it was, before she had entirely grasped what was going on she was seated on the kitchen table with her foot bleeding on Mrs. Weasley's apron.

"I'm fine—I did something stupid," she mumbled, aware of everyone in the crowded kitchen looking at her and Harry as though they were aliens.

"Good God, Ariane, 'something stupid' hardly covers this; what _were _you thinking?" Not waiting for an answer, she called into the next room; "Smethwyk? Smethwyk, can you take a look at this?"

"He's gone," said a familiar raspy voice. Leaning very heavily on a crutch, Professor Connor came into the room. She was altered almost unrecognizably from her former self: Angharad Connor might have once been called pretty, but no longer. Her bronze hair had all been cut until it was barely longer than Harry's, and one of her bottle green eyes had been put out and was now covered with a gauze patch. There were innumerable white scars over her bare arms and shoulders, and the hand not holding the crutch was nearly a claw from all the healing breaks within it. The other hand was missing the thumb and all its fingernails, and all the unscarred skin Ariane could see was bruised black and green.

"Yes, I am quite ugly," Professor Connor said, nodding vaguely to Ariane and Harry. "I expect that my classes will be much quieter now." She turned to Mrs. Weasley. "Molly, ask Remus about it. He's fairly good with cuts." With another off-center nod she wandered out of the room.

"She's not right in the head, is she?" Harry asked warily as Professor Connor's back vanished around the corner.

"Was she ever?" Ginny asked from near the fireplace, but very quietly. If Professor Connor had indeed lost her grip on sanity, then it wasn't wise to provoke her, since originally she'd had all the human compassion and kindness of a barbed wire fence.

"Ginny, don't make smart remarks. Do me a favor and go find Remus, please." Ginny made a face but complied to her mother's request, weaving under and over people and vanishing upstairs. With a critical eyeMrs. Weasleycast a look at the cut, then said "_Accio_!" and began dabbing it with the pale green liquid she'd Summoned. Ariane bit her lip as the cut burned and stung.

Remus Lupin stumbled over Crookshanks and into the kitchen a moment later, looking hassled and exhausted. "What's the matter, Molly?" he asked, unfailingly polite.

"Ariane's got a nasty cut on her foot and Smethwyk's gone back to St. Mungo's. I was wondering if—"

"I'll take care of it," he assured her, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

Ariane had only seen Remus Lupin in his human form once or twice, counting Christmas. He had the same rawboned, haggard appearance as Professor Connor, which made Ariane wonder if all werewolves looked somewhat alike. His face was lined and his hair was graying, but something in the way he held himself or the way he smiled was still young. He took her bare foot without flinching and peered into the cut.

"What happened?" he asked in quite a different voice than Mrs. Weasley. Lupin was shy around Ariane, perhaps because he'd inadvertently saved her life or because she knew that he was a werewolf before she'd known him as a human. Whatever the reason, he spent a lot of time looking at the ground when he talked to her.

"I stepped on a playing card," Ariane said, her voice sagging with irony. He glanced up at her for a moment and smiled shortly, apparently choosing not to question this. Harry rolled his eyes.

"It's not infected, and the cut is quite straight. If I stitch it up, it will heal in a week."

Ariane nodded compliance, but Mrs. Weasley started. "Stiches?" she snapped. "Remus, can't you just heal it magically?"

Ginny giggled. Lupin shot her a warning look, then smiled placating at the small, angry red-haired woman. "Stiches are much more reliable for simple cuts than an out-of-practice wizard," he told her. "They will work well in this case."

"Arthur's didn't work!" she sputtered, but trailed off when Lupin raised his eyebrows. "Oh, fine. Have it your way!" Mrs. Weasley stormed out of the room, calling over her shoulder, "Ginny, Ron, Harry! Come and pack your things."

"What for?" Harry asked, confused. Ariane shot an equally bewildered expression over her shoulder at Mrs. Weasley's back.

"To go back to school, of course!"

"Is tomorrow really the end of the holidays?" Ron asked. "Seems like they've been really short this year."

Ariane had to disagree, though privately. She felt as though the holidays had lasted a thousand years; felt like that the events contained in those two weeks could span a decade. Suddenly her foot went entirely numb, and she looked down in surprise. Lupin waved a spray bottle at her.

"It's so that you can't feel the stitches. It's a rather creepy experience to feel the thread pulling through your skin." Biting his lip in concentration, he threaded a fine needle in two tries. Ariane wasn't sure she could have done it in ten.

"Do you practice on yourself?" she asked as he pulled her foot onto his lap so that it was at the proper angle.

"Mostly," he admitted. "Also, recently Angharad's been coming to me instead of letting her cuts heal on their own. And her—her friend, as well." He tied a knot into the end of the thread.

"How many werewolves are there here?" she asked, wondering if one of the Aurors she'd seen going in and out of the Burrow was hiding a furry secret as well.

"Only two," Lupin said shortly, poking the needle through the skin at the edge of the wound. Ariane leaned forward with interest as he took careful stitches, tinier than her own, each barely visible against the clean white skin of her foot. "Doesn't it make you queasy to watch?"

"No," she replied. "I've seen it done before." Her mind threw forth an image of Salazar when he was only eighteen; his face furrowed in concentration as he repaired the damage a heavy scythe had done to a boy too small to be wielding it. "My brother once had ambitions to be a Healer."

"Salazar Slytherin wanted to be a Healer?" Lupin glanced up at her, his voice only a little disbelieving. "How did he begin wanting to save lives and end trying to take them?" He held her foot firmly so that she couldn't jerk it away. "It's a question."

"It's rude," she grumbled, holding still. "I don't know what made him change." That wasn't entirely correct. It had started innocently, trying some black magic on the side, but had only intensified when he had tried to raise Ariane from the dead. "Well, I suppose it's my fault. He got really into black magic when he raised me from the dead."

"That was brave of him," Lupin said calmly, taking another tiny stitch. "Black magic has a nasty habit of killing those who wield it if it's done improperly."

"He was a great wizard." Ariane lifted her chin defiantly, but found it much harder to watch her foot being sewn up with her nose in the air. She shrugged it off and leaned forward again. Changing the subject, she asked, "Where's Professor Connor's friend?"

His grip on her foot tightened, but Ariane couldn't feel it. "We don't know," he said, still calm, but the heavy lines on either side of his mouth deepened with—anger? Worry? "He was also one of Lucius Malfoy's bodyguards, and hasn't been seen since the night—well, not for two nights, at the least."

"Was he in the Order?" Ariane pressed as Lupin drew near the end of the cut.

"No, he wasn't," said Tonks from just behind Ariane's head. The girl twisted to look at her. Tonks had come to the Burrow that morning wearing her favorite disguise of a heavy-set tweedy woman, and though she'd resumed her normal form complete with concert t-shirt and jeans, her short hair was still gray. "They were quite close though, eh Remus?" Tonks winked cheekily and Lupin made a face.

"Very good friends," he said dryly, tying off the thread. "All right, this thread is a bit magical, so you'll only have the stitches in for two days or so before it heals and the stitches melt." He pulled a roll of bandages out of his pocket and wrapped it around her foot twice, cut it neatly with a flick of his wand, and tied it off deftly. "Try to keep it up as much as you can," he advised. "You can walk on it, but don't if you can help it."

"Okay," Ariane agreed, pulling her still-numb foot onto her lap so that she could examine the wrapping. Lupin shot Tonks a 'don't bring up awkward subjects' look and Tonks rolled her eyes. Ariane hid a smile and filed away the news that Professor Connor had a lover who had vanished with the Death Eaters to dangle over Harry's head later.

"Oh bloody hell!" Ginny swore as Mr. Weasley maneuvered the van into a parking space outside Kings Cross.

"What is it now, Ginny?" Mrs. Weasley asked, exasperated. "Have you forgotten something?"

"Rupert!" she wailed from the seat next to Ariane. "I've left Rupert at home!"

"Ginny, there's no time to go back," Mrs. Weasley lectured. "We'll try to send him by owl—"

"No!" Ginny half-shrieked. Ron, who was sitting behind them with Harry and Hermione, put his hands over his ears. "Errol will _drop_ him!"

Tonks, who was sitting on Ginny's other side, winced as the van windows reverberated.

This argument went on for some time, in which Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ariane all unloaded their things, found trolleys for them, and played a game of euchre with Ariane's deck of cards. They were halfway through their second game (Hermione and Harry had won the first) when Mrs. Weasley stormed out of the car, looking like the human embodiment of a thunderstorm.

"Here, you two go with Arthur and find that blasted cat!" she snarled, and Harry and Ariane, who had been indicated in that furious sweep of arm, nearly leaped back to the car. "You two come with me—we can take their trolleys." Hermione and Ron, looking rather worried at their own fate, waved to the other two as they climbed back in the van. Mr. Weasley slammed the car into third gear without using the clutch, making the gears crunch and rattle.

"Blasted cat!" he muttered.

Ginny snuffled pitifully into her sweater sleeve, but Ariane was fairly certain that the youngest Weasley hadn't been crying. Being the only girl in a family full of boys had advantages, and the liberal use of tears in a family unused to them could grease hinges and buy favors.

Mr. Weasley swore as the clock above Kings Cross chimed the half-hour before eleven and nearly drove into the back of a smart red car he was following too closely. With another crash of gears he pushed the van into second gear and the passengers lurched so violently Ariane and Ginny knocked heads.

"Ouch!" they exclaimed just as Harry drew in his breath sharply from hitting his shoulder against a window.

"Dad, you've got to use the clutch!" Ginny gasped as her seatbelt nearly strangled her.

"Ginny, don't be ridiculous!" Mr. Weasley shouted over his shoulder as the van stalled halfway around a roundabout. "I don't need a small purse to drive a car!"

Harry and Ariane both made noises like muffled firecrackers. Then—

_BOOM!_

The world rocked, and it wasn't just because Mr. Weasley couldn't drive.

Ariane twisted in her seat to see a cloud of putrid yellow smoke rising from Kings Cross Station.

* * *

_Author's Note: Dun dun duh…more to come! I'm in a good mood at this point because I've finally mapped out all the specifics for the climax and ending…and I've written the last chapter, in true JKR style. Of course, my last chapter doesn't end with scar…of course, I could still stick it in…_

_Originally the Percy/Ariane scene at the beginning of the chapter was longer and juicier, but, to my saddness, it didn't fit in. It was dragging down the storyline so I chopped it. Don't worry, you didn't miss out on anything _too_ good._

_Leave a review!_


	22. AntiMagic

"_If dreams are like movies, memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 22: Anti-Magic**

When the Daily Prophet covered the accident the next day, it seemed so simple, so straightforward.

Someone had set off a violent spell. It was not something usually seen in England due to the suicidal nature of what was within—it was a magic-eating spell. This anti-magic attacked and 'canceled' magic and those who had it. The most noticeable issue when the spell went off was the fact that the barrier to Platform 9 ¾ closed and couldn't be reopened, leaving the witches and wizards on the platform stranded and prey to the anti-magic that spread like a noxious gas.

To Ariane, it seemed as though the world had gone mad.

Mr. Weasley had abandoned the stalled van, and seconds after that awful yellow cloud began to rise in the air was running full tilt towards Kings Cross. Ariane, Harry, and Ginny were left to struggle out of the van, while all around them cars honked and drivers swore and between platforms 9 and 10 came a dreadful howl of a hundred voices. Ariane broke into a dash and was neck in neck with Harry as they vaulted over the ticket barriers, past guards who yelled rude things at them, past tourists and fat women and baby carriages until the whole world became a blur in her eyes with an epicenter around the growing crowd around the platform.

No one knew what had happened. There were some people who stood back, astonished at the explosion and the panic and the fear, there were others who were panicking, some as still as statures, others shaking uncontrollably, and a third group that tore at a brick barrier with their bare hands, screaming the names of loved ones and friends. It was apparent that the Muggles at the train station had seen the explosion, but just assumed that someone had set off a smoke bomb or something equally harmless. The ticket taker was nearly in a state of apoplexy screaming at everyone to remain calm, there was no harm done, but then someone punched him in his jaw and knocked him silly.

It took five minutes for Ministry Wizards to show up, but it was long enough for the anti-magic to eat its way through the barrier. Even the Muggles had to notice when a very solid, very large brick barrier began to evaporate like water on a July day. They also noticed that as the barrier began to vanish, people began to fall out of it in various stages of panic or injury. The air took on the indescribable odor of rotting and burning flesh.

Ariane was nearly squashed by a fat man as he stumbled into her, but she was pulled aside by Harry, who looked pale green, as though he were going to throw up. The fat man was still half-normal, but all over his body were patches of dry, burnt flesh that looked like charcoal, in his eyes and on his scalp and pitting his thick belly. Around the burnt charcoal parts his fatness swelled and bulged, as though it were trying to bridge the gap eaten away. Chunks of his curly hair began to fall out even as they watched, replaced by more burned flesh, his left eye swelled in its socket and then began to collapse like a balloon. The smell was awful, a mix of burned meat and of rotting. With a sharp exhale, the man died, his body collapsing in on itself as the _something_ ate him away from within, sagging and bulging as though he were dissolving.

Turning aside, Ariane threw up everything she had eaten that morning. Next to her, Harry was doing the same, swearing in between heaves.

He finished first, wiped his mouth on his sweater sleeve, and looked around frantically. "Ron and Hermione!" he gasped. "Have you seen them?"

Ariane shook her head, swallowed down the rest of her bile, and ran after Harry as he sprinted away through the crowd. She was a quick runner, but she knew that fear had given her feet wings. Disjointed fragments of faces she knew and faces she didn't flashed by in an endless macabre filmstrip. Ariane tried to stop herself from looking at those who were dying, their bodies consumed by the _something_, but she saw and memorized each one. She saw no one she knew well and no one from the Burrow.

Were they safe? Or still trapped on the other side of the barrier?

_Or_, said a nasty voice in her head, _are they nothing but a puddle of ash and ooze, like that man?_ The thought nearly made her throw up again.

Ministry wizards were trying to get through the crowd without much success, as most of the people were trying to escape.

Ariane lost Harry as he darted around a group of Muggles who were looking small and shocked, and one who was snapping pictures. "Harry!" she screamed. He didn't reply, but she hadn't expected him to. She redoubled her pace and fell over a body, crashing to her knees on the ground. _Don't look back_, she told herself. _Don't look at her, don't look back, and don't look._

She looked. She couldn't help it.

"Oh God," she whispered as the world whirled and screamed around her. The young woman was nearly all gone, most definitely dead, and the only part of her that Ariane recognized was that short gray hair, left over from Tonks' favorite disguise. A tweedy old woman. "Oh God," Ariane murmured again. Something had paralyzed her, leaving her mind empty except for that stark whisper. "Oh, God."

At first Ariane thought the icy cold was shock, creeping up her arms and the back of her neck and through the tears in her jeans. Then she _felt_ a new _something_, as palpable as sheets frozen on a winter wash line. _It_ was coming, and she would have bet her life that _it_ was nothing she wanted near her.

Shock made her slow. Ariane turned like a fool, staring gape-mouthed at seven black, hooded creatures slid into the station like shadows with nothing to cast them. At the edge of her numb perception she felt Harry's busy mind freeze, and Ariane suddenly knew what these were.

"Dementors," she murmured. As though it had heard her faint whisper above the chaos, the nearest turned its hooded face to look upon her. It moved so fast she couldn't follow it, but suddenly it stood in front of her. The smell of its robes, a thousand times worse than that of the disintegrating human flesh around it, made Ariane's senses flail blindly.

It reached down two huge, scabbed hands and gripped her shoulders in a grip that was strong and yet squishy, as though its decomposing flesh was held on by only its own will. One hand was more than enough to hold her shoulders as the other passed over her loose hair, the silky strands making deep creases in its puffy rotten tissue. Taking a grip on her hair—it had betrayed her once again, first with Lucius Malfoy and now—it tilted her head back.

Ariane looked up into its hood, her breath freezing on the air as she addressed it. "My brother created you, I think," she murmured, her mind frozen solid. Salazar had always had a flair for the dramatic, and big, black, swooping demons were just his style.

The Dementor didn't reply, instead fixing its awful soft, rotten hands on her face. Ariane felt her skin try to jump away, but she couldn't move as the Dementor drew her nearer to it, lifting her face up to its hood.

_I must be dreaming_, Ariane thought suddenly. _This is another possibility. I'm asleep at the Burrow, or in the Weasley's car, and Mr. Weasley is driving and its making me dream odd things, and I can't be dying because I've got to help Harry kill Voldemort and Salazar has to be there or I'll never exist and I just don't know why I'm not waking up yet, this can't be happening, I'm dreaming, I've got to wake up. Wake up Ariane, WAKE UP! I've got to wake up because I'm dreaming I'm dreaming I'M DREAMING!_

A scream that nobody heard escaped her mouth as the Dementor's pulpy, lipless mouth closed on hers, shooting down the Dementor's throat just in front of her soul.

* * *

Percy had just settled down in his office and was finishing clearing out his In tray when all sorts of alarms began going off. Judging by the weird, wailing quality it was an alarm from the Department of Mysteries, and it sounded urgent. With a sigh of irritation—alarms from the Department of Mysteries were not particularly unusual—he poked his head out into the hallway and looked up and down it for any sign of what this was about. 

"Hey, what's all this?" he directed at his next-door-neighbor, a short, wheezy man named Charles Allenby.

"No idea," Charles mumbled, petting his bald head with a handkerchief. "Is it another attempted Time Turner theft?"

"Probably not," Percy dissented, looking the other way at a pale man with glasses much thicker than Percy's own. "What do you think, Jasper?"

Herman Jasper shrugged. "Probably nothing we need to get worried about."

"Bastards!" came echoing down from the floor below, followed by a deal of rushing about and some very worried voices.

Percy frowned and went down the hall to punch the elevator buttons and curse at the disobliging elevator until one of the doors sprang open. He made towards it but it immediately closed and went downwards. Scowling at the door, he went and punched more buttons, waited until the next door opened, and darted inside before it could slam closed on him again. It caught the hem of his robes and with a snarl of irritation Percy pulled them out.

Work chafed him now, as it never had before. He sat at his desk and daydreamed for hours about Ariane; thought about talking to her, thought about kissing her. Percy had no trouble keeping up with his job, of course—he rather fancied he'd gotten better at it just so that he would have more free time. Ginny, in one of her uncomfortably accurate moods, had given him a picture of Ariane that she'd taken just after Ariane's switch to Gryffindor.

It wasn't a very good picture, but it was her, smiling shyly and waving from the left-hand side of his desk, her short silver curls tucked behind a black ribbon and a quill in one hand as she looked up from some half-finished essay. The picture didn't always show it, but behind her some second-year boys had held up a sign saying 'Slytherin Slut' with a curling arrow pointing down at the top of Ariane's studious head. The reason the picture didn't always show this now was because in a fit of rage Percy had inked out one of the second-year boys' faces, and the two now spent more time stumbling around blindly than holding up their nasty sign.

The door opened with a small chime on the Atrium, which was chaos. Percy took a step back automatically as a rush of voices flooded the elevator, but got out right away when he realized that the elevator would go down with him if he didn't get off.

"I say, what's going on here?" Percy grabbed the nearest person, which turned out to be Rita Skeeter. He let go of her at once. "I'm sorry," he said politely and tried to fade back into the crowd, but she lunged at him, trapping his arm in her talons.

"You!" she crowed in a voice that somehow seemed much louder than all the chaos. "I'd just like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Weasley, just a few."

"Sorry, I'm busy," he snapped as he tried to find an escape, but everyone around him was preoccupied.

"Is it true that you've made the acquaintance of Ariane Somerled?"

"I've heard of her," Percy said in as bored a tone as he could manage to shout. The trick with Rita, he thought as a kind of mantra, was to be bored about anything she asked. Anything at all.

"Can your department confirm that she's currently one of those on Platform 9 ¾?" Rita demanded, prodding him in the chest.

Percy made himself shrug. "I suppose she must be, since she's going back to Hogwarts," he told her. "What on earth does this have to do with anything?"

He was saved the trouble of worming the information out of Rita by the arrival of a very harassed man in a bowler hat.

"Dementors!" he half-screamed. "Dementors have been sent to prey on the survivors!"

"Survivors of what?" Percy asked the room at large in the shocked silence that resulted, feeling his guts plummet five stories without a pause.

A few voices in the room blended as people whispered: "Anti-magic." It echoed through everyone: "Anti-magic, anti-magic."

The echoes never reached Percy. He was already gone.

* * *

It was a curious experience, losing her soul. 

Normally Ariane would have been quite upset indeed, as she usually saw her soul as something other than demon-fodder, but she couldn't seem to attach herself to that blast of emotion pouring from her. Every memory, past and present, rushed from her mind, all her fears and loves and loathings and passions—gone. It didn't take very long before she rocked away from the Dementor's grip. She looked up at this thing—what was it? —and saw within its hood a small something, glowing with many colors, bright and really very interesting to look upon.

It was hers.

She knew that. She didn't know her name, her past, her future—but that…that thing, whatever it was, was definitely hers.

"I want it back," she whispered in the long silence before her knees hit pavement with brutal force—had she ever felt that before, that rattling sensation of concrete and bone—and, with a soft noise, she laid down at the edge of the things robes and rested her face on the rough ground and wondered, if one could call that examination of a void a wondering, what had happened.

The Dementor took the soul from its mouth, held it like a marble in the palm of its scabby hand. It had never had a soul like this before, now twice removed from the body of its owner. It was a scarred soul, but a lovely one. The soul was too good to consume all at once. The Dementor cradled it in his hand and examined it. Perhaps, it thought, by removing some of the scars, smudging over some of the cracks, it would be even better when he did eat it at last.

* * *

Percy appeared in the parking lot outside Kings Cross right next to a batty old man with a paper bag over his head, crouching down behind the wheels of his car. "What in hell is going on?" Percy demanded, yanking him to his feet. 

"'S what they told us to do if the end of the world came," the man mumbled, keeping his paper bag tightly over his head.

"God, what good would that do?" He let him go and ran towards the station, going through his head what he knew of anti-magic. There was only a bit of it in the world at any given time, due to the fact that it was often eaten by demons like Dementors or Apeps. Whatever it was, scientifically speaking it 'neutralized' magic. In reality, when anti-matter 'neutralized' a witch or wizard's powers, it killed them. It killed them horribly. Usually the deaths were so uncommon they could be blamed on a strange tropical disease that nobody had heard of. Ebola was a favorite.

But if someone had collected enough anti-magic in one place like the Kings Cross station, where there where quite a lot of wizards, the deaths would be very noticeable. And if all those wizards had gotten just a bit of anti-magic on them, or inhaled it, or rubbed up against someone who had it on them, they would at the very least get sick. More likely was they would die as the magic in every atom of their bodies that made them a wizard or witch was destroyed.

People bounced off Percy as he charged through the crowd, uncaring of what became of them. He saw the Dementors and felt his throat close in terror. The scene was as awful as he could have imagined, and worst of all he couldn't see Ariane anywhere. There were men, women, boys, girls, Muggles, Wizards, and Dementors everywhere, but Percy's eyes couldn't pick out a flash of silver hair from anything.

He spotted Harry, standing with a horrified look on his face, boxed in between three Dementors and a group of wizards dissolving from anti-magic exposure. Percy knew that Harry could fend off Dementors perfectly well, but couldn't fathom why he wasn't. "Harry!" he shouted, hoping to wake him up. Percy didn't want to witness a Dementor's Kiss. They were said to be unbearable to see performed. Harry didn't move, so Percy took a chance, lunging through a space between two Dementors and hitting Harry rather hard in the shoulder.

"Percy?" he said, confused and angry, then looked up and registered the Dementors. "Oh."

"Do something!" Percy told him, realizing that he'd put himself right in front of a Dementor and having no desire to be Kissed.

Harry looked at him sidelong, still very white and shaking, and mumbled, "Can't you?"

"No!" he snapped. "Do something or you'll die!" The nearest Dementor was close enough to freeze the hem of Percy's robes.

Numbly Harry raised his wand. "_Expecto_," he began, his face screwed up. "_Expecto Patronum_." Nothing happened. "_Expecto Patronum_!" he said again, with more conviction. He didn't look as though he were thinking of something happy, though. Harry looked as though he couldn't imagine what happiness was.

Percy pushed back his memory of trying to learn this spell and failing miserably, the only one he'd ever not been able to learn. _Happy memory_, he thought. _I've got to think of a happy memory._ Percy discovered that this was exactly like when one forgets the answer on a test. The harder he tried to think of one, the harder it was. _Oh, come on!_ he shouted at himself,_ I've got to have loads!_ All that he could think of, however, were all the times he'd been picked on by his brothers or overlooked or mistaken, all the times he'd done something he knew he'd regret later, all the things he'd done to his family and friends and girlfriends.

It made Percy wonder how many people had happy memories of _him_.

Then, unbidden, a memory rose to his head. He was standing in front of Ariane, and she was wearing a blue dress that made her eyes look bright violet and she was smiling at him, nodding an answer to a question he had asked, and she just looked so very pretty then, and so very, very happy. Percy realized he'd never seen Ariane look that happy before or since.

When was that? He pushed the question out of mind.

"_Expecto Patronum_!" Percy shouted in unison with Harry, and two bright silver shapes blasted forth from their wands at the Dementors, chasing them away. He squinted into the light, seeing a stag and a…was that a dog? He didn't have time to contemplate it, because the light had thrown into relief a lanky, slumping shape with long silvery hair.

"Ariane!" he murmured under his breath, vaulting over and around people and sliding to the ground beside her. She was facedown, but mercifully unspotted by any anti-magic.

Percy grabbed Ariane and turned her over, surprised at how light she felt. Her hair, which had always been shiny silver, a shade between pewter and white gold, was now a dull ash gray with broad white streaks in it, like a crone's. The face beneath it was nearly the same color, white with insipid bluish undertones as though she were underwater. Her once-purple eyes were now the deep no-color gray of an infant's, glassy and half open; they were sunk into deep purple-gray circles. Ariane's fragile ribcage was moving, but irregularly, as though she were having trouble remembering how to breathe.

He didn't shake her, afraid of breaking her. "Ariane?" he asked loudly. "Ariane! Ariane!" Briefly those sunken, infantile eyes rolled towards him, but there was no recognition, no flicker within those glass depths, and they slowly rolled away. Percy looked her up and down, her body seeming so small within Ginny's too-large trousers and the blue sweater she'd adopted over the holidays. The only injury he could see were scrapes on her knees, but those weren't enough to render her this washed-out and unresponsive.

Harry knelt down on her other side. He was very white, his hair looking sooty against his pale face. Almost as though checking to make sure she were real, he reached out and felt her forehead. "She's alive," he whispered.

"Why wouldn't she be? What happened?" Percy demanded. There were red spots boiling in his vision, and he reached out and shook Harry as hard as he could. "What's _wrong_ with her?" he cried.

"Get off me!" Harry replied, a weak version of his usual brusque self. "I—I think a Dementor got her." He went still paler, but continued. "I got ahead of her and I felt the Dementors come near and I turned and—and one was holding her, looking down. She said something to it, but then it sort of leaned down and…and Kissed her." He swallowed very hard, Adam's apple bobbing. "I couldn't move, I just felt frozen…and then…and then…" he stopped talking and shook his head.

_Of course_, Percy thought numbly, _Harry saw Ariane being Kissed, and that's why he was in shock_. He looked down at the small, sad pile of flesh and clothing that had once been a human girl named Ariane, a sister to Salazar, daughter of Arsinoë and Tom Riddle, his only true love. "We have to get it back," he said, surprised that his voice didn't crack.

"What?" Harry asked, startled.

"Her soul. She needs it back. She has to—she has to keep dreaming," Percy faltered, his voice sounding small and far away. "We don't know where to go—when to go. She hasn't had the right dream yet. We need to get it back so she can—so she's able—keep dreaming."

It would have been so unkind for Harry to point out that Ariane didn't exist any longer, though her body was still breathing, that he bit his tongue and stayed silent until he thought of something to say. "Take her out of here," he said heavily. "I've got to find Ron and Hermione."

"No need," said a hoarse voice from behind them. It was Hermione, dirty and sick looking, one hand wrapped in a bandage that looked quite bloody. Ron was leaning on her shoulder, also very exhausted, his freckles livid against his skim-milk skin. "We're here." Ron made a confirming sort of noise.

"What happened to you two?" Harry asked, jumping to his feet and moving them away from Ariane. "Were you behind the barrier?"

"No," Hermione replied, letting Harry take Ron from her. "Just in front of it. I got a bit of that stuff on my hand, but I think I got it off before it spread. Ron might have breathed some in, he's been looking worse and worse." She smoothed her bloody bandage, still shaking a bit. "I had to cut off a bit of my index finger to get rid of it."

The world stopped making noise for Percy. He ran a finger over Ariane's cold face, tracing her jaw and cheekbones, running a finger down her nose. Her eyebrows had faded to invisibility, making her face look either peaceful or incredulous; he couldn't decide which. Maybe both. Whatever it was, it was a glassy calm that Percy could only believe came from approaching death.

Percy leaned his head forward and rested it at the base of her throat, listening to her heart beat slowly beneath his ear. With a deep breath he closed his eyes and thought a sort of prayer to whoever might be listening. Percy had never really _believed_ there was a God, but he thought that if there was he could really use some advice from Him. The prayer didn't have words, really, but the idea was '_Help me. Please, please help me_.'

There was a sort of response, or maybe it was an echo from Ariane's empty body to Percy's desperate ear:

_He had finally talked Godric around. He had her guardian's permission, the support of a few friends of his as well as hers, and all he needed now was to find the perfect moment to ask her. Though he'd caught glimpses of her going in and out of the Great Hall, cheerful in her favorite blue dress with her silver hair loose down past her elbows, he hadn't been close enough to speak to her yet._

_If he hadn't trusted Godric, he would have thought Salazar knew something. Ariane's older brother had always been fiercely protective of his sister, going as far as turning the headman of the village into an ass when he'd dared to ask for her hand in marriage. He had no desire to spend any of his time on earth as an ass, so he was being much more careful about it. But still, Salazar had been lurking in unusual places today, like Rowena's house, where the leader of Slytherin House almost never ventured._

_It made him nervous, but finally he saw Ariane ahead, one hand on the door to the outdoors, luminous pale blue and silver._

"_Ariane!" he called, speeding up his walk._

_She turned to look at him, and smiled. "Laramy, hello," she said happily. "How were lessons today?" Ariane waited until he caught up, then pushed open the door._

_It was a brilliant spring day, so green and sunny that it seemed surprising that the air still held a faint cool breeze, winter's dying breath. He supposed that they talked, because he saw her listening to him attentively—she was a good listener, but didn't withdraw completely, which he liked—and heard his own voice. They walked around the walls four times, and not once was there an awkward pause. Salazar was on top of the western wall, scowling south, his soot-black hair tied back from his strongly boned face. He glared down at them, his purple eyes smoldering with hatred._

_Ariane didn't notice it, but then again he knew that Salazar could never look at his sister with anything but love. He knew that the hatred was all for him._

_Finally, he stopped walking across the grounds from Salazar. The sun was beginning to set behind them, throwing a golden light on her and turning her skin the color of cream._

"_Ariane, I love you," he blurted, grabbing both her hands in a thoroughly ridiculous way and lifting the right one to his mouth. He pressed a kiss into her palm. "I've loved you for quite awhile."_

_Her face shifted for a moment, to something almost like fear. "I know," she replied, but she couldn't keep herself from smiling a little at the expression on his face. "I've known."_

"_Will you marry me, Ariane?" he asked her, thanking all listening deities that his voice didn't crack when he asked._

_Again something rather like nervousness flickered in her eyes, replaced by a shining delight that made their corner by the wall so much brighter. "I'd love to. Nothing could make me happier."_

_He thought that his heart would explode in ecstasy. Instead he kissed her hard and lifted her up, spinning her around as she laughed, and he could feel her smile while they kissed and he laughed as well, putting her down and dropping to one knee to kiss her hands._

_Above him there was a hiss and a noise like a stake plunged into raw meat. Ariane's hands convulsed in his grasp and she toppled to one side, a thick arrow protruding from the left side of her chest, her face shocked, blue dress swiftly turning rust-red._

"_Ariane!" he cried out._

Someone tapped Percy on the shoulder and he jumped, startled out of this—this memory? Vision?

"Percy," said Dumbledore very calmly. "I would like to see Ariane, please." His old face was deeply creased with sorrow, but a steely rage burned in his blue eyes. Percy nodded, still numb, and lifted her, supporting her lolling head as though she were a newborn.

Dumbledore gripped her shoulders and raised her up so that he was looking straight into her blank gray eyes. "Where is it?" he asked her in a very sharp voice. "Tell me where it is."

She murmured wordlessly, her eyes rolling off at all angles.

He gave her a firm shake. "Tell me where it is," he said again. "Look at me. Tell me where it is." Ariane's eyes caught his and she whimpered like a child, her blank eyes filling with tears. She shook her head very slightly, shuddered, and once again fell limply backwards, tears running up her cheeks into her hair. "No, don't you look away. Look at me. What happened to it? I know you can talk. Tell me _where_ it is." He locked eyes with her as tears ran down her face. "Where is it?"

"Stolen," she whispered. Percy started at the sound of her voice. It was childlike, as though she couldn't remember how to make her tongue fold around the words. "Stolen from me."

"Where is it now?" Dumbledore demanded. Ariane hiccupped and started to look away again, but he shook her so hard her teeth rattled. "Tell me!"

"Don't do that!" Percy shouted, trying to wrest her skinny body away from Dumbledore's steely grip. "Don't hurt her!"

"Don't know where," Ariane murmured, her eyes starting to roll back in her head. "Lost it."

"It isn't lost, and I know you know where it is. It's yours, isn't it?" Dumbledore ignored Percy's attempts to free her and shook her again. "Isn't it?"

Her eyes opened all the way, gray and blind. "It's mine, and it isn't gone yet. He has it." And she fainted, her body going as pliant as a rag doll's.

* * *

_Author's Note: This chapter took FOREVER to write, for no apparent reason. I kind of developed a block on the antimagic until I saw Constantine, which heavily influenced my descriptions of the dissolving people. Sorry it took so long. Hope it's worth the wait._

_Review and let me know I'm being read._


	23. What's Left

"_If dreams are like movies, memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 23: What's Left**

"Why did you do that?" Percy shouted. "Why'd you hurt her?"

"It didn't hurt her, Percy," Dumbledore said soothingly as he lowered the pale shell to the ground. "Ariane isn't at home right now, and the only way to get the attention of the shell of her that's left is through physical means."

"But why?"

"Because she's not lost yet," Dumbledore replied triumphantly. We can find her soul."

"No we can't," Harry burst out. "I saw the Dementor Kiss her!"

"She knows its not gone, even if she doesn't know anything else," the Headmaster replied patiently.

_Not gone_. Percy looked down at her face; still and shrunken within her white hair, and at her half-closed gray eyes. He would very much like to see those eyes returned to their natural violet, and to see that flossy white hair become silver and shiny again. Most of all, he wanted her to look at him as she had in that memory-vision, as though he was the cause of all her happiness. "What are we waiting for?" he demanded softly. "How do we find it?"

"Quickly," Dumbledore said, turning to Hermione and Ron, who were looking shell-shocked down at Ariane. "You two should go to St. Mungos at once," he told them, pulling a pocket watch out of his robes and peering at it. "Actually, do you mind if I send you to St. Mungos five minutes ago? I really think Ron should be looked at as soon as possible." He laid the pocket watch on the ground and pointed his wand at it; it glowed and then lay still, looking ordinary. "The Portkey should take you both to the main entrance of St. Mungos. Please warn the head Healer that there will be many, many more victims coming in."

"Thank you, sir," Hermione said, picking up the watch. She and Ron vanished with a whoosh of air.

"Where should we look?" Harry asked. His skin was a pale, claylike gray; as though he were about to be sick. "Is it just lying around somewhere?"

"We should hope so," Dumbledore replied briskly, scanning the area. "Souls cannot be taken far from their body without a lot of effort, but lost souls have ways of finding new…new homes. And then they are disastrously hard to dislodge."

Ellen was seven years old. She was on her way to visit her grandparents, who lived in London, and she didn't know what all the hubbub was around the train station. Ellen supposed that all train stations were like this—after all, she'd never been her before. The people lying on the ground were a bit alarming, but she gave them a wide berth and tried to keep a hold on her doll and her suitcase.

"Grandma? Pawpaw?" she called over and over again, scanning the coats of the people around her. Grandma wore a no-nonsense black wool coat that smelt of chocolate-covered cherries and a peculiar perfume that nobody really liked; Pawpaw wore a faded green army coat and nearly always had candy in his pockets.

Then Ellen saw something that drove all thoughts of her grandparents from her mind. It was something like a marble, but larger, like the rubber bouncing ball she'd gotten at the dentist's office. Somehow it seemed to glow, not with the cheap greenish glow of a toy, but an iridescent glow, like an entire rainbow at once. Ellen put her suitcase down and walked a bit closer, still clutching her doll to her side. Crouching, Ellen peered at it as though she were examining an insect.

It was beautiful.

She stretched out a hand and touched it.

Percy heard a child cry out and saw a blonde girl with blue ribbons in her hair yank her hand away from something as though she'd been burned. He saw the soul and started towards it. It had not occurred to him that the soul could be lying there where anyone could touch it. It was very, very important, Percy thought, that nobody be allowed to take this soul but Ariane.

The brightly colored ball pulsed as Percy came near it, its many lights shifting and whirling in an excited way. He bent down and reached for it cautiously. "I think I've found it!" he called over his shoulder. "Harry? Headmaster?"

"Don't touch it!" Dumbledore called urgently, but it was too late. Percy's fingers had closed around it, and his mind exploded in a thousand directions.

Voices screamed from his past, her past, blasting all his rational though to nothing more than a mote of fear. He wasn't aware of the skin on his hands peeling off, scalded by the raw mind-energy that Percy held in the palm of his hand. Stars collapsed and blobs of marmalade danced in his vision as voices he had forgotten and voices he had never heard poured into his ears without making a sound.

"Don't you dare use that tone of voice with me young man—"

"I built this with my own two hands, and isn't it fine?"

"You've been made Head Boy, just like Bill."

"Bravery? Well that rules _you_ out—"

"—hasn't been seen out of the lake, could be dead—"

"What's her name?"

"Isn't it nice that you're following in his footsteps?"

"Caelestis."

Suddenly Percy found himself again, that mix of hope and frustration and love crouching terrified away from this soul that blazed like a sun in his palm. He could feel his hands burning. He could hear voices around him, worried voices. There was smoke somewhere and it was smudging his glasses.

And Ariane was inside his head.

This wasn't Ariane as she lay yards away, pale and unresponsive. Nor was it the Ariane he had met at Christmas, blushing and shy, in borrowed clothes. This wasn't even the Ariane he'd caught a glimpse of in a memory, innocent and happy. It was an Ariane that had no trace of the physical world on her. The sight—or rather, the image inside his mind—was like staring into the sun. It was viewing the past/present/future of one person in a single instant. It was horrible and glorious.

She stood straight, her head up, with her silver hair falling in loose rounds to her elbows. The dress she wore was white, and her skin was browner than he'd seen it. Her eyes seemed more direct, as though she could finally see the world clearly after years asleep. She had folded her arms across her stomach, which seemed much rounder than it was now. Percy tried to understand it and failed.

"Percy," Ariane said, and her voice was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.

"Ariane, why do you look like that? Are you pregnant? I don't understand—"

"Don't worry, this isn't how I am now," Ariane told him. "I've got it straightened out. Put me back in my body, please." Her eyes danced inside his head, violet flecked with darkest blue and white. "Don't worry. I love you."

Moving his feet took so much effort that Percy was soaked in sweat after a few steps. His hands felt as though he were pushing them against jagged glass. He couldn't see very well but somehow he wasn't tripping—he was aware that his eyes were watering like mad, and there were tears running down his face from pain or effort or both.

And there was Ariane, white-haired and ghostly, her lips parted slightly in surprise, her no-color gray eyes unfocused.

Percy had never read any books on the soul; he didn't know what he should do. He knew what needed to be done, though, so he put his lacerated, bloody hands down to her face and let that multicolored globe of soul fall between those colorless lips. As soon as it left his fingers he felt the pain in his hands increase tenfold, but he ignored it and bent down and kissed her, breathing out as though he could refill her rasping lungs.

Ariane gasped, her eyes flying wide open as she burst into color. Her face took on a healthy pink tinge; her hair went it's usual silver sheen, and her eyes blossomed purple. For a moment she was terribly certain she was in a tomb—naked and forgotten, isolated from the passage of the world—but then she looked and saw that she was in the world.

The world was amazing, full of colors and sounds and smells, some good, some bad. Her brain took them in and put them with names, a lighting-fast catalogue of red/rotting/sunlight/death/breathe/tall/shadow/chatter (and on and on and on). Out of all these colors and shapes and smells she found Percy, crouched above her with a horribly uncertain look on his face, his hands dripping blood. She was transfixed by the kinks of his dark copper hair, mesmerized by his eyes and his spiral galaxy of freckles that lay across his long nose and up those sharp cheekbones. His pupils were mere pinpricks, as though he'd been staring into a bright light, and around his pupils his eyes were the colors of sapphires, blending seamlessly into a leaf-green rim that ended with the bloodshot whites of his eyes.

"I thought I'd never see you again," Ariane exhaled, using his borrowed breath. And, with no more ado, she reached up and kissed him as hard as she could. When they stopped for air, she whispered, "Percy, I've gotten it right."

"What do you mean?" he asked. Percy looked tortured, his skin gray with exhaustion. Even as she watched his eyelids flickered; saw sea-green eyes rimmed with red.

They were so entangled that when she spoke her lips brushed his ear and he could feel her voice where it began in her diaphragm.

"I've had the right dream. Everything's sorted out. I know when to go."

"Will you die?" Percy asked. His eyes were drooping closed, he rested his forehead on her stomach, and Ariane wished it were a softer pillow for him as she sat up and let him lie down. She felt as though she could run across the country at a sprint, as though she could solve any problem, as though she could ask him to marry her. Ariane was certain that that was what she wanted now.

"Neither of us will die," she promised him, and with that he went to sleep, his hands leaving bloody marks as they released her arms, tumbling to the concrete.

Ariane looked up for the first time and saw a little girl with wisps of blonde hair tied with blue ribbons. Her brown eyes seemed overlarge in her round face, and there was something within them that suggested a knowledge no child should have. "Is your name Ellen?" she asked the girl.

"You're Ariane," Ellen lisped confidently. "You were inside my head."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be."

"It's all right. Do you love him?" she asked, looking down at Percy. "He looks like Mommy does when she's sick in the mornings."

"I'm sure that isn't the problem," Ariane said, choking back a laugh. Laughter was not the right noise for the platform, not when she was surrounded by death. "Have you found your grandparents?"

Ellen looked back at an elderly couple who were watching her closely. "I wanted to say hello before I went to their house," she informed the older girl who'd accidentally shared her mind, if only for the briefest of instants. "Face to face."

"It was nice meeting you," Ariane said politely. Ellen smiled, a gap-toothed grin, then took her grandmother's hand and left the platform. The silver-haired girl turned and saw Dumbledore, his kind old face slouching into tired wrinkles. He watched Ellen leave too, his blue eyes unreadable. "Will she be all right, Professor?" Ariane asked. She felt exhausted all of a sudden, much too tired to feel surprise or fear or shock. "I didn't hurt her, did I?"

"She will never be ordinary, but no, I don't think you hurt her." Dumbledore cleared his throat and looked down at Percy, asleep in Ariane's lap. "You two should be at home as soon as possible. I don't feel I need to tell you that you've undergone a great ordeal."

"Oh, I know all about that," Ariane yawned, her eyelids drooping. "But I've got to tell you about—"

"Another time, my dear. I will be here to hear it when you wake up."

"But Professor—"

"Sleep first, Ariane."

She dreamt of the sea.

"_Salazar, why do waves come?"_

"_They are pulled here." Salazar was young, perhaps fourteen, his face still a bit rounded with baby fat, his dark hair short and unruly. He looked at the sea, and how the sun sank into it. "It looks like a bloody eye rolling back into the skull of the sea."_

"_I don't like it either," Ariane agreed, standing at the edge of the water and letting the waves suck the sand out from under her feet. "I miss mother, Salazar. I miss her very much."_

"_So do I. I wish she hadn't been murdered." His face, lit with the warm light from the sinking sun, was startlingly distant. "I wish there was a way to bring her back."_

"_But the dead are at peace," Ariane said, shocked. "Helga told me so."_

_Salazar shrugged and sneered a bit. "She'd like to think so, considering all the family she's sent to the grave." He wrapped his arms tight around himself. "To me, death is a darkness. And when you are dead, you become part of the darkness, and you never step into the world of light again."_

_Ariane frowned, trying to understand this and keep her balance as the ebb tide ate her footing. "So is night a little death?" she asked._

_Her brother smiled at her. "Night _is_ a small death of the world, just as sleeping is a small death for us."_

"_Death is a sleep from which we cannot wake, then?"_

"_Yes. Well, sometimes. Sometimes we can wake from a deep sleep."_

"_But not from death."_

_Salazar looked as though he'd like to challenge her again, but he was fourteen and fighting with his seven-year-old sister was beneath him. "No, no one has ever woken from death."_

"_I should like to," Ariane told him cheerfully. "I would tell everyone what Death is like, and nobody would be afraid of dying anymore!" Her unspoken sentence rang in the air between them: "_You_ wouldn't be afraid of dying anymore."_

"_Don't you dare wish to die," he snarled, catching her around the shoulders._

"_Salazar!" she said, surprised. "I wouldn't wish it!" He took a long look into her eyes, the same shade as his, but radiant with innocence and purity. "I love you."_

"_And I love you."_

_They sat in silence, listening to the waves come in._

"_Salazar, are the waves pulled here or pushed here?" Ariane asked him. He kissed her silver head and said nothing._

"You didn't answer my question," she murmured, and woke up to Harry's bright green stare. "Oh, damnation."

"You didn't ask me a question," Harry pointed out. He looked much better than when she'd last seen him, as though he'd washed and brushed his hair at the least. His eyes looked haunted—but then, she amended, Harry always had a haunted, seen-too-much look about him. "Dumbledore says you know when to go."

Ariane ran her tongue over her teeth to give herself time before answering and nearly gagged at the repulsive furry coating they seemed to have developed. "Look, I'm not discussing this with you—or anyone else for that matter—until I've had a shower and gotten some clean clothes." She sat up and found herself in the Hospital Wing, wearing her own pajamas and feeling like she'd slept for a thousand years. "What day is it?"

"Two days after," Harry told her.

"Where's Percy?"

"At the Ministry, helping sort out all this mess. He says he'll write as often as he can."

"Is everyone else…?" her words trailed off into space at the implications.

"Everybody's okay. I mean, Tonks isn't, and a few people from Gryffindor aren't…" he swallowed. It looked painful; his throat bobbed and he blinked a little more than he usually did. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Okay," she agreed. "Actually, I'm glad you're here. If you can stick around until after I get cleaned up, I was wondering if you'd like to go on a sort of mission with me." Ariane felt strangely calm and centered, which probably had something to do with her soul being stripped from her body and stuffed back in rather haphazardly. It was as though Salazar had rearranged her the first time, by drawing her slowly back into life like gold metal through a form, and the Dementor had rearranged her again by ripping out her soul—and then Percy had dropped it back into her, a stone into a still pool. When the ripples had settled, she was as calm as she had been when she was empty, but she was herself again.

She was _more_ than herself again. Before Ariane had been split in two: her child-self that Salazar had shot, and her teenage-adult-self who had awoken in a tomb. Now she was one person with many, many experiences. One person who could survey her past with serenity, knowing that what as past was past.

Though the present _was_ managing to unsettle her again.

Harry gave her a curious look and Ariane felt him try to probe her thoughts. This time, instead of shoving him out, she deliberately let him see where she meant to go. His eyes bugged out. "You want to go to the Chamber of Secrets?" he demanded, his voice quietly incredulous. Ariane blessed him for having the good sense not to shout.

She beamed at him. "You'll find out why later," she teased. "But let's just say this: I know why Salazar named it 'Secrets'."

_Author's Note: Yes, this is an update. Yes, it did take FOREVER to write. This is because of school, and because I've had the nastiest case of writer's block I've ever had. For weeks I would open this thing, stare at it, change one word, and close it again (or just close it). Review, please. I hope this is worth the wait (and if it isn't, the next chapter's already in the works)._


	24. What's Right

"_If dreams are like movies, memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts  
Chapter 24: What's Right**

"I think you've gone mad," Harry informed Ariane as they walked down the hallways near the Hospital Wing.

"I've never been saner," she shot back. Her hair was crackling with electricity and stood out around her head like the rays of the sun. "I feel invincible."

"You've just had your soul sucked out your throat," he replied, matching the blistering pace she'd set easily. "I'd think you'd be a little less energetic."

She inserted a leap into her stride that nearly sent her tumbling down the stairs and giggled. Harry rolled his eyes, and, for the umpteenth time, tried to find out why she wanted to go to the Chamber of Secrets. Ariane resisted, intent on keeping it a secret as long as she could. "I don't think I like you," he snapped at her, frustrated.

Ariane shrugged and grinned as she pushed open the first-floor bathroom door. "You're just as curious as I am, though." Harry shrugged back and followed her.

"Ariane?"

She spun, not recognizing the quavering voice that hailed her. The girl standing at the end of the hallway was tall and small-boned, with her usually sleek hair pulled haphazardly away from her face. Her already slanting eyes were tear-bloated to slits.

"Tuyet?" Ariane asked hesitantly. "What's wrong?" The taller Slytherin girl stood, shifting from foot to foot, her face becoming more bloated from behind with tears she was still waiting to cry. Ariane went to her and tried to catch her blue eyes. "What's wrong?"

Tuyet burst like an overfull balloon and slumped on Ariane's shoulder, crying so hard that she gasped. Behind them, Ariane heard Harry slip into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, his thoughts churning with awkwardness. Ariane patted her back until Tuyet managed to find her voice again.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice muffled in Ariane's sweater, now quite damp.

"It's all right. What happened? Was it the platform disaster?" she asked, quoting the event as the _Daily Prophet_ had charmingly dubbed it.

"Y-yes," Tuyet hiccupped, her eyes flooding again. "Blaise—he—I saw…" she burst into loud sobs again. Ariane felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. She had never been particularly close with the curly-haired Slytherin boy, but he'd never been cruel to her, even after her switch from Slytherin to Gryffindor.

"God, Tuyet, I'm so sorry."

"Daphne too," Tuyet wailed. "All the _good_ Slytherins are gone!"

"What about Millicent and Pansy?" Ariane asked hesitantly. While she didn't have anything specific against Millicent, Pansy had done her best to make Ariane's life a living hell. She rather hoped that Pansy'd met the same fate as Blaise and Daphne.

Tuyet's face flushed red, and an odd expression crossed her face. "Oh, Pansy," she said with what Ariane eventually recognized as a smile, "Pansy's alive. Pansy's got inside sources. She told all the Slytherins she likes—all the Slytherins _Draco_ likes, that is—not to come back to school on the Hogwarts Express. That's not me, Daphne, or Blaise obviously." Her face twisted and she began to cry again, leaning her head on Ariane's shoulder.

Ariane prodded Tuyet's swirling mind and came up with an entire scene, blazing red and vinegar in her friends anguished mind:

"_I knew what was coming, of course," Pansy whispered to a group of third-years. "Draco warned me—he told me to tell only those selected. He knew that something was planned to rid the school of Muggleborns and the filth that associate with them—like that Ariane Somerled. You know that she's Muggleborn, don't you? No? That's why she was put in Gryffindor, because the House of Slytherin always recognizes Mudblood filth."_

"_That isn't true," snapped Tuyet/Ariane. "You're a liar, Pansy." She was sitting in an armchair by the fire, her legs pulled up to her chest, an awful hollow feeling within her ribs. "You're a spiteful little bitch, Pansy, you just don't like Ariane because she's pretty and Draco fancied her."_

_Pansy's face flushed. "She's an ugly little Mudblood, and you think I envy her? She's probably dead."_

"_Well, that's not my fault," Tuyet snarled. "You killed innocent people just so you could get the chance to get back at her, didn't you?"_

"_I don't care if she's dead," Pansy shot back._

"_Well, she's not. She wasn't even really hurt, she's just in the hospital wing for a day or two." Tuyet's voice was thick with rage. "Do you realize that you killed two _Slytherins_, Pansy? Tell those little leeches that."_

"_I didn't kill anyone," she said coolly. "Well, not anyone that _mattered_."_

_Tuyet launched herself from her seat and at Pansy in a spectacular flying leap. Her hands had almost closed on Pansy's throat when Pansy shouted "Protego!" Her hands bounced off a wall painfully and she hit the floor, winding her. That didn't stop Tuyet: she closed her hands around Pansy's thick ankles and jerked her off her feet._

"_I hate you!" Tuyet screamed, her throat already raw with tears. "Why didn't you tell Blaise? Why didn't you tell Daphne?"_

_Pansy sneered. Tuyet's temper, already burning, flared to new heights. Not thinking, she snatched up her wand and shouted the first spell that came into her head._

"You turned her into a camel?" Ariane asked Tuyet, incredulous.

"Yes," Tuyet said, a hint of a smile on her lips. "And then I Banished her somewhere. I don't know where, exactly, I wasn't particularly specific."

"I think it was someplace camels don't usually go," Ariane grinned. "You're going to be in _such_ trouble."

"I don't care. I wish I'd killed her."

Behind them, Harry cleared his throat. Tuyet stared at him, her blue eyes incredulous. "Please tell me you two aren't going together."

Ariane and Harry exchanged mortified glances. "_No_!" Ariane exclaimed as Harry blurted, "I don't even _like_ her."

Tuyet almost smiled. "Well, if you say so," she said in a slow, irritating way. Ariane turned a shade of maroon that Ron would have admired. This seemed to brace the cutting Slytherin up a bit, because she said, "I'm going to see what I've missed of McGonagall's class. See you two later." She winked and walked away with an infuriating sort of smirk on her face.

Ariane turned to Harry, who was quite pink in the face himself, and he muttered, "Slytherins are gits."

"For once, I agree," she told him fervently, and they went into the bathroom.

It was a miserable, dimly lit room with cracked mirrors and mildew in the sinks and on the floor. The only noise in the room was dripping water. Ariane turned to the door that they had come in by and said, "_Colloportus_." The door sealed itself, and she turned back to Harry. "So. You want to say the password, or should I do it?"

The underground tunnels that led to the Chamber of Secrets were just as slimy and filthy as Harry remembered.

Ariane, however, had had no idea that they would be trekking through a sewer. She restrained a shudder as her foot crushed a rat's skeleton.

"Not what you expected?" Harry smiled grimly, kicking the bones out of his way.

"Well, not entirely," Ariane admitted. "I didn't expect a cheery tea room though."

"When are we going to leave Hogwarts?" he asked casually.

Though she would have dearly loved to say "after our seventh year, silly" and watch Harry's temper flare, she stepped on the urge. "Soon," she said simply, her mind flickering through what was to come. "Very soon." They had reached a cave-in in the tunnel, and Ariane led the climb over it.

She slipped on loose rock and Harry steadied her, asking calmly, "How will you know when to go?"

Ariane frowned and shook her head slightly. "I need to think about it. I don't know how to say it."

Down the tunnel, through the antechamber, into the Chamber itself. Ariane paused at the entrance and looked Harry straight in his eyes. "I don't want you to think I know everything that's going to happen from here on out. I don't. I don't know if I'm going to get hurt, or if any of us are going to get hurt, and I don't know if we'll all make it home. I don't know if this will be a happy ending. What I do know that is if we want to end Voldemort once and for all, this is the way to do it."

He nodded, his dark hair falling over his green eyes, then frowned. "But how will you know when to go back?"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her thoughts roiling. "Because when that time comes, I won't have any other choice."

They observed the Chamber in silence. Ariane admired it; it was truly a masterpiece of architecture. Harry remembered it, and waited patiently for her to tell him where they were going. The floor was slick with water, and their wandlight made a glossy sheen on the stones. Ariane could see their reflections: Harry, dark and solid, and herself in her pajama shirt and jeans, pale and ethereal. "I'm not of this time," she said, half to herself. "But I know this place." Her voice caught in her throat and came out as a sob.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked.

Ariane licked dry lips, and swallowed. "I was wondering…just wondering…if this is what he looked like before he died." She swallowed again and looked away, determined not to cry anymore on Salazar's behalf. "He would have only been—thirty-one. _Barely_ thirty-one." Salazar's likeness stood across from her, gaunt-faced and monkeyish, his beard touching the floor between his great stone feet.

Harry put a hand on her shoulder and said simply, "I'm sorry." But it could never be simple between two minds that open. Ariane saw, though the bridge of thoughts that was Harry's arm, that he pitied her in the same way that he pitied himself, that he wished both of them knew less of their families. He wished he could have known his parents, and he knew that she missed her mother in the same way he did: the loss of a person they had never really known, only heard of.

Harry didn't say anything. She cleared her throat and told him, "I think we'll have to go along to the side of the statue to find a stairway."

"What would be at the top?" he asked warily.

"My tomb," Ariane whispered. "I need to go back there and see what Rowena left me."

The Ministry was very quiet when Percy went in to pick up his things. His hands, which had been coated in salve and bandages two days before by Madam Pomfrey, were now once again whole, unmarked by the unadvisable physical handling of a soul. He kept flexing them, as though to test that they still worked.

He also kept running his hand over the corners of a tiny envelope that was tucked in his coat pocket. His mother had given it to him on his last day in the Burrow, with a knowing (if somewhat teary) smile. In it was a ring small enough to seem meant for a child: two diamonds the color of champagne set in a slim gold band, surrounded by four tiny emeralds shaped like leaves.

"It was your great-grandmother's," his mother had explained. "Nobody else in the family could ever wear it—Grandma was built like a bird—but I think it would fit Ariane very well, should you want to give it to her." She had sniffed heartily when Percy hugged her as tightly as he could, the only possible response.

Percy had been transferred, to his mild surprise, from the Department of International Relations to the Department of Mysteries. He'd gotten a letter that morning, which had been very brief and informed him that he needed to clear out his desk at the earliest possible moment. With a sigh, realizing that this was probably the first of many demotions until he reached the equivalent position his father held in a meaningless department, Percy unlocked his office door and went inside. It was a mess, and he sighed as he hung his coat up and got to work.

It took quite awhile to clear out the office, mostly because Percy had let his organization slide in the days after Christmas, and also because there was a lot of paperwork to go through. Nearly all of it would be left behind for the next person to fill the office and post Percy had, but there were a few letters, papers, and photographs Percy wanted to keep for himself. He started with the drawers of files, alphabetizing and ordering things by date until his brain was numb.

Then he turned to his desk. As usual, his 'In' box was stacked full of forms, letters, newspapers, and other random paperwork that (in some way or another) was Percy's job to settle. He plowed through it in about ten minutes, sorting and reading until he'd reached the last form.

It was a single sheet of parchment, totally blank. Suspiciously, Percy pulled the 'In' box towards him and peered at the paper, checking it for the signs of a prank from Fred and George (who, despite being successful entrepreneurs, were still playing pranks on him whenever they felt the need to test a new product), and, seeing none, lifted it from the box and flipped it over.

There was a single word printed in bold black handwriting:

**'GOTCHA'**

Percy frowned, then gasped.

The paper melted, shifting form and color until he was holding a miniscule hourglass in his hand, its fine gold chain looped tightly around his wrist. It had a tiny engraving on its gold face: CMXCVII. The sand was trickling down into the lower bulb of the hourglass.

Abruptly the world shifted, his desk slid away from him, and the second office in the Department of International Relations was very, very empty.

Gotcha.

_Author's Note: This chapter is not up to my personal standards for myself. I wanted to get them back in time in this one but the plotline just wasn't cooperating with me. HOPEFULLY (emphasis on the hope) the next chapter should go more quickly than this one, which was another "type two words, delete one, type one word, delete two, type three, delete a paragraph, type a paragraph, delete the draft and bang head on desk" sort of job._

_On the plus side, the whole back-in-time thing is shaping up to be totally wicked, so at least I have that to look forward to._

_Review! Reviews are good and lovely and make me think I'm writing for a purpose!_


	25. 997

"_If dreams are like movies, memories are films about ghosts."_

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 25: 997**

"_Lumos_."

"Whoa. This is cool."

Harry's voice echoed as they finally broke through the crypt door into the marble tomb and Ariane lit her wand.

Ariane remembered her time in this room as clearly as though it had been yesterday. It was a big, square room, made almost entirely from white marble. The walls were plain, but the ceiling was a black, matte rock set with thousands of tiny crystals. A marble slab in the middle of the room was empty of the corpse it had been made for. The five trunks left for her were open, their contents scattered by a frightened girl searching for who she was. _And I didn't find it, did I,_ she mused as she picked her way across the portraits. _It's taken me months to find out who I am._

Without hesitation she picked her way to the paper-stuffed trunk, Rowena's last gift to her. The papers were in total disarray, because Ariane had pawed so hastily through them, but they were there. Proof of what Ariane had to do. She took a seat and began riffling through the paper, blessing Rowena for writing legibly for once.

Harry looked at the portraits, lingering the longest over Godric's. "He's not how I imagined Godric Gryffindor," he said finally.

"What did you think he would look like?" Ariane asked distractedly, scanning another document. Memoirs. She tossed it aside and grabbed another.

"More like Dumbledore. I always sort of thought that Dumbledore might be the Heir of Gryffindor in the same way that Voldemort's the Heir of Slytherin. Because they were always fighting each other, even from the beginning." Harry squinted at the picture, then at Ariane. "But you seemed to think that I'm the Heir of Gryffindor."

She peered at him through her hair. "Harry, I don't know. Salazar cursed Godric's family so that they would all be Muggles until his heir came to kill Gryffindor's heir." Looking resolutely down at the paper she held, she discovered it was a record of Salazar's decent into what Rowena termed 'a carefully hidden insanity'. Ariane began to read it. It was very, very hard to read. Half the words she didn't know, and the half she knew meant pretty much nothing except that Salazar was a few bricks short of a load.

"But both my parents were magical."

"I don't know, I suppose the curse lost strength over the years. Anyhow, it would be your mum's family that was descended from Gryffindor. How did she die, again?"

"Voldemort killed her," Harry said, sounding as though he'd said these words many times. "He only wanted to kill me, but she wouldn't let him. So he killed her."

_Well, that makes a bit of sense…Salazar cursed Godric's family to be common _until_ his heir came to kill them. That could mean that once that happened the Gryffindor line would become wizards again, so Harry's mum could have been a witch because she was fated to die at Salazar's heir's hands. I think. And that would have broken the curse, so Harry would be a wizard even though he's the heir of Gryffindor._ Ariane decided not to share this with Harry just yet. He probably wouldn't want to think that his mother had been fated to die from her very birth. "Look, can't you give me hand with this?" she asked, tossing the paper she held onto the 'useless' pile.

Harry sat down beside her and picked through the trunk. "What _is_ all this rubbish?"

"Rowena's attempt to help me, I think. She knew that Salazar had tried to raise me from the dead, and she wanted to give me a bit of information to go on." Ariane laughed. "Though she was true to form and gave me far more than I needed." She thought of Hermione's homework and all of its excessive detail and smiled to herself.

"She and Hermione could start a club."

Ariane didn't hear him. Her eyes had fallen on a long scroll, beginning with the phrase, "Laramy Ferrer died today." She snatched it and began to read.

_One of my students, Laramy Ferrer, was killed today in a laboratory accident. He had already finished his Hogwarts education but stayed on to assist me in magical matters, such as the building of the walls of Hogwarts. Laramy has always been very good with Charms for levitation and flying, and because he has never married (nor has any desire to) he continues to live in Ravenclaw house, monitoring the students when I could not. I suppose he would have taken my place as Head of Ravenclaw when I died, if he had not preceded me to the grave._

_Helga thinks that Laramy took his own life, because he convinced himself there was no reason to live. I blame myself for this. At his request I cast a powerful magic on him that will allow him to be reincarnated with each new generation (in a new body, naturally, as the reuse of his old one would soon attract attention) until he is alive at the same time as Ariane. I didn't believe in true love until I saw it in Laramy and Ariane. They were made for each other, two parts of one whole. _

_Salazar, who has rendered himself nearly incapable of loving anyone, clung to Ariane as though she were trying to get away, though in truth she loved him innocently and never once doubted that he would always be there for her. Salazar's insecurity is what undid him in the end, I think. He made an attempt on Laramy's life that took Ariane's, and, guilt-stricken and mad, he delved deep into the Dark Arts to bring her back to life for his own selfish purposes. I believe I am the only one who knows of the flaw in his spell, the flaw that caused Ariane not to rise to life at once. Well, actually I am now the only one who knows. For I told Laramy as well. I told him that Ariane may not rise in our lifetimes, or that of our children or our grandchildren. (Or should I say, rather, Helga's children and grandchildren, as Laramy and I are both childless.)_

_He died three days later, his body burned by a jar of Gubraithian Fire that had not been sealed properly—or that had been unsealed carelessly. I believe that he ended his own life, rather than face the time until his natural death without the woman fated to be his wife. I wish he had not. I foresee many unhappy lifetimes for the man I knew as Laramy Ferrer before he and Ariane are reunited._

Ariane crumpled the paper up and threw it aside, her mind reeling. _He killed himself._ She though of Laramy proposing to her, of Laramy talking to her in Slytherin house, of kissing him under the stars. _But I have Percy now,_ Ariane reminded herself. _I love him._ But the thought of Laramy ending his own life out of despair made her want to cry.

"Hey, this one's got Hermione's name—and—who's that?" Harry pulled the paper out, squinting at Rowena's cramped handwriting. "What's that say?" Ariane leaned over, her stomach doing its best imitation of a lead weight.

"I have seen Ariane," the silver-haired girl read from the top of the page. "She is no Inferius, nor is she a ghost, but flesh and blood, living and breathing. Apparently she awoke almost a thousand years from today and"—Ariane's voice cracked—"now seeks the death of her own father by the hands of a boy she calls her friend. He is not tall, with dark hair and brown eyes, and has a seriousness beyond his years."

Harry continued: "She has brought others from her new life: two werewolves, a girl who could be Helga as a child, another girl named Hermione who I would have liked to have in my House, and the boy who Ariane says is fated to kill her father."

Ariane elbowed him in the ribs. "That would be you."

"I don't have brown eyes." Indeed, Harry's eyes were not a shade anywhere near brown—they were a shade somewhere between grass green and bottle green.

"Well, we'll have to change them. I suppose we'll have to change a lot of things, because I'm pretty recognizable."

Harry snorted. "I'd say. Between your hair, your eyes, and the fact that you're—er—sort of pretty, you'll have to change a lot." His face went slightly pink. She stuck out her tongue at him and continued reading.

"Those two werewolves—they'd be Lupin and Professor Connor, right?"

"Seems logical," Harry made a face, presumably at the idea of Professor Connor accompanying them anywhere. "But she's mad, isn't she?"

"Well, she's always been dangerous—" Ariane gasped as a towering flame appeared on the marble block in the center of the room. A man stepped out of the fire, which consolidated itself into a swan-sized bird perched on his shoulder. "I—Professor?" she asked, bewildered by the sudden bright light.

"It would reassure me greatly, Ariane, if you would not spontaneously disappear from Hogwarts. It would also please me if you didn't lure other students with you." Dumbledore's voice was just as light and polite as always, but something about the way he was watching her made her feel like an insect.

"He came by himself," she muttered resentfully. Harry glared at her, but it was as much as an excuse to not look at Dumbledore as anything.

"You two are, if you've forgotten, our hope for ending the reign of terror Lord Voldemort has imposed upon the witches and wizards of this nation," he continued in the same marrow-freezing tone. "Though, considering your remarkable memory, Ariane, I doubt you have."

"I had to go—" she began, gesturing at the reams of paper surrounding them, but Dumbledore cut her off.

"I don't suppose it occurred to you, then, to let someone know where you were going? Madam Pomfrey is very distressed by the fact that one of her patients has vanished from the hospital wing; Miss Granger, who I daresay shouldn't be upset now in her delicate condition, is quite distraught; and I am very, very worried about your apparent lack of respect for your positions."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Ariane admitted, her temper still up, "but I had to come down here, to look at these papers!" She grabbed the one that she and Harry had been reading. "Here's when we should go!" she snapped, pointing at the date at the top of the paper and thrusting it at him.

"997 AD," Dumbledore read, his expression not changing an iota. He looked like a statue of some Norse god, standing on an altar, about to exact a fearful judgment on his worshipers. "Do you know when in the year?"

Ariane thought. _Not during the winter,_ she mused; _all the deaths seemed to happen in the winter. But it's still cold outside, and there are leaves on the trees._ "Fall," she decided. "Early fall, during an unseasonable cold."

"I'm glad you know when to go," he said, his expression for the first time altering into something like worry. Dumbledore offered Ariane, and then Harry, a hand up onto the marble block. "It's urgent we return to Hogwarts now."

For a moment Ariane felt the same as she had when she first set foot into the Gryffindor common room, alone, with a tingling fear running along her spine. "What's happened?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

"Please take hold of Fawkes' tail, Ariane, Harry." Harry did so without question, but she grabbed the Headmaster's sleeve.

"Professor," she asked, her eyes beginning to fill. "Is he dead?"

Neither of them needed to ask who 'he' was. Dumbledore shook his head. "There is no way of knowing, just now." When Ariane stood very still for a moment, swaying on the spot, Dumbledore seized her slim wrist in his hand and murmured to Fawkes, "Take us back to the Hospital Wing, if you please."

The three of them vanished in a long tail of flame.

"No!" Ariane cried as her feet hit the ground. "He can't have gone!" Her legs gave out and her knees hit the floor with a crack.

"Harry!" Hermione cried at the same time. "Where did you go?" She looked around frantically and saw Ariane crouched on her hands and knees, white as a ghost, Dumbledore standing looking down at her, Harry looking shocked and pale. "What's wrong? Who's gone?"

"Miss Granger!" Madam Pomfrey nearly shouted. "Please calm down!"

Hermione sat back in her bed, bushy hair rumpled and face flushed. "Who's gone?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"Percy Weasley vanished from the Ministry this morning, leaving behind only an overcoat and the knowledge that a Time Turner had been stolen from the Department of Mysteries that morning, set for the year 997 AD." Dumbledore pulled on a scrap of cloth in his pocket, and it doubled and redoubled in size until it was the old brown overcoat Percy had always worn.

Ariane rested her forehead on the cool stone floor, her eyes brimming with tears. _Gone. He's gone someplace far away, and I might never see him again. _"You know," she whispered, "He came to the Burrow in that coat. He took the day off work. Percy never takes the day off." A shaky sob tore its way out of her throat.

"Oh, get a grip," a new voice said, crisp and cutting. "You're not doing him any good by sitting on the floor and whimpering like some kind of derelict dog." A foot snaked out and caught Ariane under the shoulder, flipping her onto her back. Professor Connor towered over her, her bronze hair regrown to below her shoulders. "You're one of the best damn students in my class, Somerled, and if you think that whinging is going to get you anywhere after half a year with me, I should resign right now." Her sole bottle-green eye flicked to Harry and Hermione in turn. "Of course, I'd say you're number three after these two. But if they're coming as well, why worry?" With a flick of her head, she adjusted the bandage over her missing eye.

"Couldn't have put it better myself, Angharad," Dumbledore said lightly. "Now. We need a plan."

"Who's going?" Harry asked, without preamble.

Ariane thought back in her memories. "You, me, Hermione," she drew a deep breath and nodded at Professor Connor, "Professor Connor, and—er—Mr. Lupin."

"Not Ron?" Hermione asked with a quaver in her voice.

"He's far too ill to be moved for at least two more weeks," Dumbledore stated flatly. "And even then he is not up to a full-scale adventure."

Harry offered Ariane a hand up, and on the pretense of levering her to her feet whispered, "Ginny'll want to come. She'll be impossible if you don't let her."

"Do you mean _you_ want Ginny to come, or Ginny wants to come with _you_?" she returned, a grin flickering across her face. Harry rolled his eyes at her and went faintly pink under his glasses. More seriously, Ariane whispered, "I _have _seen her in a few of the possible endings."

"But they weren't good ones, were they?" She shook her head. "Are you just saying that?"

"I'm saying that if Ginny comes because we, as a group, decide she should, it _will_ go wrong." Ariane stared Harry down, a clash of grass green and pre-dawn violet. "Please don't value the means over the end, Harry."

"I could say the same to you," he growled back.

"Are you two quite finished?" Professor Connor demanded. "We need to get started now if we want to leave soon."

Two hours later, Ariane looked at herself in the mirror and saw that a stranger looked back. Her hair had been dyed an improbable brown, and thanks to a few smelly magical creams her skin was dark too, almost Mediterranean-like in color. The stranger's eyes were still light, but now they were a pale jade green. With shaking hands she braided and pinned her hair in a crown around her head, aware that she looked a great deal like a Gypsy or a Jew, two despised people from her time. She hoped that she didn't run into anyone hostile.

She pulled on the clothes given to her with a little more ease: they were what she had grown up in. Kirtle, skirts, bodice, a cloth to cover her hair, all in shades of green and cream; brown leather shoes. It took her awhile to lace the bodice because her fingers weren't used to the work, but when she finished and glanced in the mirror again, she decided there was nothing about her that could be remarked upon, especially not by anyone who thought that Ariane had been dead for seven years. With a critical glance at her reflection she added a broad band of freckles across her nose and cheeks, making her deep skin color look a bit less false.

Stepping out of her preparation room, she was greeted by the sight of Hermione and Harry, both looking very awkward in their medieval clothing and rather odd, especially Harry, who had been forced to trade in his glasses for temporary vision-adjusting spells. His eyes looked small and lost in his face without his glasses to pen them in. Hermione was wearing a version of Ariane's clothing in red and green, and was having a hard time lacing the bodice.

"What a stupid piece of clothing!" she burst out. "Why would anyone submit to these?"

"Because bras won't be invented for another nine hundred years?" Ariane suggested, finishing the lacing for her. "Don't worry about it. Its only temporary."

Harry looked a little more at ease in his tunic, shirt, and breeches, though he had the impression of being dressed up rather than dressed. Someone had grown his hair longer so that he'd fit in with their group, and it was tied in a short tail behind his head, the bits in front sticking up of their own free will. His hair had also been lightened to brown, nearly the same color as Ariane's. They could have been brother and sister, something Ariane was certain was intentional.

"I feel ridiculous," he told her, making a gesture that might indicate his lack of glasses or the spells that made his eyes brown.

"I look pretty silly myself," she replied. "I feel like I'm wearing a stranger's body."

"Are you all dressed?" Remus Lupin came in the room, his clothes as brown and battered as he was. "That was fast." He was probably the least changed out of all of them, his hair having been long enough to pass all along. His quiet gray eyes were a little amused at the change in all of them, but he did a double take when it came to Ariane. "Good Lord," he said with a smile. "I hardly recognized you."

"That was the general idea," Professor Connor remarked dryly, coming towards them with the aid of her cane. Her bronze hair served as a shield for the worst scarring on her face, neck, and shoulders. Her missing eye couldn't be replaced in time, but a strip of linen that wound around her head neatly covered it. Her clothing was all grays and blacks, longer and more concealing than the younger girls', hiding her mangled hands and also the fact that she was carrying at least five knives on her person. Ariane only knew about the knives because she had seen Professor Connor sharpening them while the silver-haired girl was becoming a brunette.

She gave Ariane a long look. "Maybe you should be the one with the eye patch. Your eyes are too much the same."

Lupin pulled a length of white cloth out of the pouch he carried by his side. "I've got that covered. This is spelled to not obstruct your vision, but you'll only have to wear it if we're in Hogwarts. You'll be a blind woman."

"I don't think that will help," Ariane objected, tucking it into her pocket. "The only thing I'm worried about is someone recognizing my voice."

"Then don't talk," Professor Connor said with exasperation. "There, that's easy, isn't it?" With a false (and quite irritating) smile, she tossed long black cloaks to all of them.

"Those are woven through with Disillusionment Charms, and while you're wearing them, most people should ignore you," Lupin explained, pulling two more out of his bag and handing one to Professor Connor, who took it without thanks. "But really we should just try to stay out of the way of anyone we don't know."

"There's a Muggle village about twenty minutes walk from Hogwarts," Ariane informed the group. "But they're quite used to seeing magic, so don't panic if they see you Apparating or anything." She smiled inwardly as she recalled the headman of said village who had once approached Salazar for her hand in marriage. "I'm not saying that they're allies—because they aren't—but they aren't enemies either."

Professor Connor shifted her weight impatiently, wrapping a strand of bronze hair around the fingers of her thumbless hand. "When do we leave? I'm sick of all this planning, this exchange of theories. Our mission is simple: we go, we kill Voldemort, we kill his Death Eaters, we come back." She banged her walking stick on the floor and glared at Lupin with her remaining eye. "The question of how can be settled once we're there."

"Angharad, if I am not mistaken this hasty attitude and lack of concern of the 'how' is what nearly lost you your life on multiple occasions," Professor McGonagall poked her head through the door, her normal brisk attitude a welcome relief from Professor Connor's rising temper. "Not in the least is the occasion on which you were bitten." The one-eyed woman flinched as though she'd been struck, but her stubborn expression didn't change.

Professor McGonagall drew Lupin and Professor Connor aside, but made no effort to lower her voice as she told them: "We do know that Fenrir Greyback has been confirmed as one of the Death Eaters who jumped back in time with You-Know-Who." Both werewolves tensed, Lupin looking worried and pale, Professor Connor even angrier, her scars white against her livid face.

"Who's Fenrir Greyback?" Ariane asked.

Professor McGonagall looked at the slight brunette, confused. "Who—oh, Ariane. My goodness, they have done a thorough job disguising you." She hesitated, her eyes on Professor Connor. "Er—Fenrir Greyback is a Death Eater."

"So are all the other people with Voldemort—" Ariane began to protest, but Lupin interrupted her.

"Fenrir Greyback is a werewolf—a savage werewolf. I don't believe there's a speck of human decency left in him." He looked gaunter than ever, his eyes sunken and surrounded by hair-fine pleats. "Voldemort uses him as a weapon against families that resist him, to make them do what he wants. Fenrir bites children, mainly, but its been rumored that he's begun to bite people even when he isn't transformed."

"Greyback bit me," Professor Connor said in a flat, empty voice, staring just past Professor McGonagall. "When I was thirteen. I was told, in St. Mungos, that it was because my auntie Minerva had stopped my father from slipping supplies to Voldemort and his Death Eaters." Her single green eye turned on Professor McGonagall, whose pale face flushed. "I had always been her favorite niece."

"Angharad," Lupin said repressively.

She glanced at him, frowned, and muttered, "I forgot that you were bitten by him as well." It was the closest Ariane had ever heard Professor Connor come to an apology.

"The Headmaster sent me to bring you five up to his office," Professor McGonagall said, straightening her shoulders and resuming her normal stern expression. "We'll be going to the Ministry of Magic by Flu Powder."

"Flu Powder?" Ariane asked Harry in an undertone as they followed Lupin and Hermione out of the room.

He rolled his brown eyes. "I'll explain it while we walk."

By the time the party arrived in Dumbledore's office, Ariane was very suspicious of the huge fire burning in the grate. If she hadn't trusted Dumbledore, she would have fled the school rather than step into a blaze, no matter what Harry said.

The Headmaster blinked in surprise as Ariane and Harry came into the room. "My goodness, I wouldn't know either of you. Very well done." Harry and Ariane exchanged exasperated looks. Being unrecognizable was growing old very fast. "The Minister of Magic has granted us special permission to use the Flu Network after the crisis two days ago. All other Flu Network travel has been suspended until the necessary staff are reassembled.

"We'll go over more specifics once we are at the Ministry. Remus, if you would like to begin?" The graying werewolf nodded and gathered a handful of Flu Powder. One by one their whole party went through the fire: Lupin, Professor Connor, Professor McGonagall, Hermione, and Harry, who tripped entering the grate and nearly set the office ablaze. Only Dumbledore and Ariane had yet to go, and Ariane felt icy sweat trickling down the back of her neck at the thought of stepping into the flames.

"I took the liberty of seeing what Mr. Weasley was carrying in his pockets when he entered his office," Dumbledore said, his voice kind. "I believe that this was to be yours." He held out a hand and she opened hers to accept the ring that was dropped into it.

She took in the slim gold band; the two diamonds tinted with yellow, the emerald leaves around them, and looked up at Dumbledore, speechless. He handed her a chain to thread the ring on. "I have every confidence that you will find him," he assured her. "I wish you luck on your journey." Gently he led her to the fire and threw a handful of the glittering Flu Powder on it. "The Ministry of Magic," he said, and pushed her into the roaring green flames.

Ariane spun like a top, her hands clutched to her chest, watching fire after fire after fire flick past her eyes. She held the ring in her hand, the chain whisking around her. _I'm going to find him,_ she decided, _and when I do, I'll let him give me this ring._

She hit the marble floor in the Atrium of the Ministry with a thud muffled by her layers of clothing. Harry helped her up. Ariane peered at the ceiling, covered in squiggling golden symbols, then around at the small group of serious Ministry employees, all who were staring at her as though they expected something vastly different. "Hello," she said to them, and they shuffled and muttered as one.

"She sounds too modern," said one very frazzled, gray-bearded man. "It won't work."

"It will be fine," Dumbledore replied as he swept out of the grate. "Ariane knows what she's doing."

_Well, I'm glad he's got that much faith in me, because I haven't,_ Ariane though, tugging on the end of one of her brown braids. Harry elbowed her in the ribs. "What?" she whispered as she fastened the chain Dumbledore had given her, along with Percy's ring, around her neck.

"I caught the that."

"That's odd."

"Bit useful though." He smirked at her and she elbowed him back.

Several throats cleared in unison and she jumped guiltily.

"We will now proceed to the Department of Mysteries," said one of the more serious types. "If you all would follow me?"

It wasn't what she had expected, this method of time travel. Ariane had imagined complicated loops and coils, puffs of smoke and flashing lights. She had imagined a forcible bending of time, warping and twisting it until it melded to meet their needs.

Instead, she found something almost disappointingly simple: a doorway.

It was three pieces of wood, two set into the floor, another across the top. There was nothing special about it, it wasn't even polished. If they hadn't seen a faint shimmer in the still air around it, it would have been utterly unremarkable.

"How do you set it?" Remus Lupin asked curiously, his gray eyes scanning its dimensions. It wasn't a big door—he and Professor Connor would both have to duck a bit to make it through. "Is there a corresponding mechanism?"

"She sets it," said a Ministry official (Ariane couldn't tell them apart), pointing at Ariane. "She must walk through the door knowing where she must go, and you all will follow."

"What if she gets it wrong?" Professor Connor demanded, her voice a growl. A woman with heavy black hair gave the werewolf an uneasy look; the one-eyed woman leered back, her smile quite disconcerting.

"We can't ensure anything," she said nervously, her hands going to her dark hair, "but we do have Time Turners for you all that will bring you back to fifteen minutes from now. In case—something goes wrong."

The Time Turners were passed around to everyone: tiny golden hourglasses marked with a date. MCMXCVI. Ariane looped hers around her neck and felt it settle next to Percy's ring on her sternum. Her heart ached, but it seemed fainter. _I'm coming, Percy. I'm not giving up on this again._

"Right," said Ariane, her voice surprisingly steady. "I'm ready. The year 997, in the fall, during an unseasonable cold."

"Do you know where you'll go?" the first Ministry official asked, smoothing his beard. "The 'where' is equally important as the 'when'."

Ariane closed her eyes and thought of Hogwarts—_her_ Hogwarts. Brown stone, three times her height, Godric's roundhouse, Rowena's spindle-tower and workrooms. Long grass, a forest partially cleared for its wood. In the distance, a village. A chilly wind teased her hair and she shivered—

"Look!" squeaked Hermione.

Ariane opened her eyes. There, through the rough wooden doorway, was Hogwarts. A thousand years ago. She could see the four pendants snapping above the four houses in a brisk wind, saw a few telltale patches of frost that marked a cold night, an explosion of green and gold leaves in the forest beyond.

Without a second thought, Ariane sprinted headlong into her past.

_Author's Note: As always, so, so sorry for the delay. A thousand apologies. You'll be happy to know, however, that Chapters 26 and 27 are already partially written, and shouldn't take (what, 6 months? Ye gods, I don't recall) as long as this one did. I hope beyond hope that it was worth it. I didn't want to end this until I got them on their way back to pre-Hogwartian times. Or, rather, during Hogwartian times, but in Godric-Helga-Rowena-Salazar time. Oh, I'm so excited about this ending!_

_I'll cut myself off here. As always, I love reviews. Please tell me what you thought. If you stuck with me in my delays, that is._


	26. What Became of Percy

**Films About Ghosts**

**Chapter 26: What Became of Percy**

Shards of bright light and a bone-chilling cold. Something smelled terrible. His body weighed a thousand pounds and seemed to have no borders as it melted and merged with the ground.

Somewhere, someone was calling for him.

But it wasn't his name at all.

"Laramy!" a woman cried, shaking his shoulders. Percy opened his eyes and saw a haze of white light and brown shadow. He closed them immediately—the light made his head pound. "Are you all right?" A hand touched his face, then drew away hastily. "No—"

"No," Percy said crossly as opened his eyes for the second time, "Where are my glasses?"

"Your what?" the woman asked, in a very different voice. "Glasses, did you say?" A creamy-brown blob with a smattering of blue in it moved in front of him. "Why do you need them?"

"Yes, I need my glasses. I can't see properly without them," Percy grunted as he tried to sit up. He was stiff and sore all over, as though he'd been thrown against a wall or fell from a huge height. Maybe both. The brown-blue-cream blob vanished from in front of him and put firm hands behind his back, supporting him. She was warm and smelled faintly sooty.

"Describe them to me," she said. Percy imagined the expression that went with the tone of her voice: one of complete concentration. He'd often seen something like it on Hermione Granger's face when she was reading at the Burrow. Percy wondered, with a jolt of fear, if this _was_ Hermione Granger, years and years in the future. When was he? Where and when had that hourglass taken him?

"Well, they've got metal rims, one for each eye, that hold lenses—lenses made of glass, that are sort of curved and make things that are close up clearer." He thought of his own glasses. "Er…and there's more metal bits that hold the lenses and the frames onto your head, that hook over your ears." Percy made a gesture as though putting on glasses.

"Try these," the woman said, hooking something over his ears.

For a moment the world looked precisely as it had before: hazy light and murky shadow. Slowly, then faster, it began to sharpen and delineate itself into the interior of a large wooden building. It looked like somebody's classroom—or workshop. There were cauldrons piled in a corner, many twisted out of their ordinary shape, and several wooden bins with their contents marked on the front with a line drawing of the plant. A wooden opening in the floor—a trap door—signified at least one other floor beneath them. In all, the building looked like a transformed barn.

Percy realized that there was no way these could be his old glasses—these were even better.

The woman moved back in front of him. She was older than he was, probably in her early thirties. Her long brown hair was braided into a heavy crown around her pale, heart-shaped face. A few silver threads streaked her temples, and fine creases pleated her forehead and the corners of her overlarge brown eyes. Black blotches flecked her arms and hands, as well as her face and the sleeves of her cream and blue dress. Did she have a disease?

"I didn't realize that the same effect could be realized by putting the glass in front of the eyes," she said, half to herself. "I'd been trying to think of a way to improve weakening vision in the old, but I had confined my research merely to the degeneration of the eye itself."

Percy gaped at her. "You just made glasses out of nothing," he told her.

"I had your description to go on," she waved it off, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face and leaving an inky black smudge in its place. "Being told what needs to be done is easier than discovering what is needed on your own." She smiled vaguely at him, obviously preoccupied, her fingers dawdling with a feather tucked into her hair.

Not a feather. A quill pen.

Percy remembered Ariane's description of her first teacher, Rowena Ravenclaw, and felt his logical mind fall into shards. Brown hair, ink smudges on pale skin, spare pen tucked into her braids. _Oh, dear God._

"Where am I?" he asked urgently, trying to get up. "When am I? When is more important than where. Is this Hogwarts? What day is it?"

"Stay sitting," Rowena commanded, pushing him easily back to the ground. "Calm down. What's your name?"

"Percy, Percy Weasley. Is Ariane here?" he demanded. Rowena went chalk white.

"She's dead," she said bluntly. "Ariane Slytherin is dead and buried."

"No, her name is Ariane Somerled," Percy corrected her, and then backtracked. "I mean, you're Rowena Ravenclaw, so I shouldn't be correcting you—sorry—but I know she's alive. I saw her just two days ago." It was too hard to deal with, this talking to a legend business. He had never dealt with anyone more important than Mr. Crouch, and though important, he had a long way to go to achieve "legend" status. Percy rubbed his throbbing temples.

"Ariane isn't a name so uncommon as to be unique. Describe her to me," Rowena ordered, her slightly bulging eyes wider with worry.

Percy swallowed hard, feeling as though there were a golf ball lodged in his throat. "She's not tall, and quite slender. Skinny, if you're unkind. Her hair is silver, and curly, and her eyes—" he broke off. How could he explain eyes that were the color of twilight, which watched him as though he were the most perfect thing in the world? After a moment, he murmured, "I would be honored to be the person that she sees in me."

Rowena stared at him for a full three minutes, her fingers worrying the quill pen tucked into her hair. "You aren't Laramy as I know him," she said finally. "When are you from?"

"A thousand years in the future, give or take," Percy said. His mind was tangled in knots—Ariane had told him about Laramy, the boy she'd fallen in love with and consequently died because of that love. She had told him about her older brother, the horribly jealous Salazar.

Below them, a door banged open. "Rowena!" a man bellowed.

The female Founder clapped a hand over Percy's mouth. "Why have you come here?" she whispered. "It isn't safe."

"Gathered that," Percy mumbled into her palm. "Ariane told me things."

"Rowena! Come out of hiding, you witch!" the man beneath roared.

She rolled her overlarge eyes and called, "What's he done this time, Godric?"

"Nearly exhumed the body, that's what!" Godric shouted, his voice shaking the floor. "I found him on his way down to the crypt with a bloody slew of black-robed loonies."

Percy felt the blood drain out of his face. "The Death Eaters," he breathed.

Rowena noticed his distress and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Godric, please come up. I don't feel well enough today to make sense of Salazar." She got to her feet and brushed off her brown dress, hands running self-consciously over her hair.

Now that it was mentioned, Percy thought that Rowena didn't look altogether well. Her paleness didn't seem to be natural, the shadows under her prominent eyes more pronounced than they should be. Of course, those could easily be the marks of many late nights—a consequence that Percy was familiar with.

"Damn it, Rowena," Godric sighed from below, and began his assent. The stairs shook as though Godric were ten men. "I don't suppose you would consent to discuss it over chess?" he called while halfway up, a beseeching note in his voice.

Rowena chuckled and crossed the room, as Percy sat on the floor, bewildered. What on earth was going on? How was Rowena planning to explain this to Godric—or was she expecting Percy to explain himself? What did chess have to do with anything? _And_, murmured the part of Percy who had been so proud to be a Gryffindor all his life, _what if he doesn't like me?_

The Head of Ravenclaw clumsily dragged a small table and two chairs out of a corner, her face pinking with the effort. Once she had arranged the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, she made a large box appear from thin air. It looked heavy and was apparently made of stone.

"Do you—" Percy began to ask if she would need any help, but Rowena waved him into silence. She opened the box and the pieces leaped into place, beautifully carved out of ivory and obsidian. The ivory pieces were set with red and yellow stones that may have been rubies and topaz, the obsidian with sapphires and emeralds. The crown on each side's king was set with a diamond the size of a Knut. It was clearly worth a fortune.

Godric appeared on the landing. He was a tall, broad shouldered, solidly built man who was probably forty or so. His blonde hair was left long and tied away from his face, which like Rowena's was weary and lined before its proper time. Somber shades of brown and gray blanketed him from head to foot, but his bright blue eyes still contained a sparkle that suggested he was once a merry man. "Rowena," he greeted the younger woman, holding out his hands.

She kissed him on the cheek and they took their seats on either side of the board: Rowena chose the black pieces, Godric white.

Percy sat nonplussed as they made their opening moves. Did Godric not see him? Percy ran his gaze over his work robes, which were vastly different than Godric's loose-fitting grey tunic and trousers. To his embarrassment and amusement, his robes were more like Rowena's dress than anything. After a few uncomfortable moments, Percy settled back to watch the two play chess as though they were simply a photograph.

It was obvious they'd done this many times before. Rowena moved her pieces with dart like movements, her face showing none of her thoughts as she concentrated on the board. Godric moved deliberately, his face creasing and eyes flicking from Rowena to the board and back again.

"Salazar isn't well," Rowena said obliquely as she moved her bishop.

"Ill he may be, but safe he isn't. Anna is making most of the decisions regarding his students, lately." Godric stroked his bristly chin, eyes shadowed, and placed a pawn. "Do you think his children are affected by this?"

She tugged at the end of her long braid, eyes scanning the board. "I wonder about the oldest, Felicity. She seems to have taken more after Salazar than Anna, to my dismay."

"How so?"

Rowena's overlarge eyes lifted to Godric's solemn face. "She is mercurial, prone to tantrums, rather obsessive. However, her talents cannot be denied, even at six." Her eyes dropped back down; she made her move. "I do not think that she will remain at Hogwarts long after Salazar leaves us."

Godric started ever so slightly, his face betraying shock. "I think you may be mistaken, woman," he said, his calm voice laced with the same anger that showed in the forceful replacement of a knight.

"In what?"

"Salazar would never leave Hogwarts."

Rowena shook her head at his disbelief. "What do you think he's doing in her tomb twice a week?" She bit her lip, scratched her head, and moved her queen. There was a long silence, stiff with unspoken words. They continued to move their pieces, but Godric appeared vastly troubled.

Finally the huge blonde Founder spoke. "He wouldn't. Not Salazar. I've known him since we were both boys—"

"I don't think that that Salazar exists anymore," Rowena interrupted him, brown eyes locked on Godric's blue. "That Salazar who lived in the fens, speaking to the snakes and taking care of his innocent younger sister. I believe—and you may correct me if you believe otherwise—that our Salazar died by the same arrow that ended Ariane's life."

He shivered. "Rowena—who do you believe fired that arrow?" His king hung in the air for a moment; their gazes locked, and then it stomped down. "You suspect him."

"I know Salazar did it. It's logical."

"Why would he want to kill her—unless—damn it!" Godric took most of the pieces off the board with one enraged sweep of his arm. "Laramy Ferrer. My student. The one who died not two days ago."

"Salazar hated him," Rowena observed calmly, waving a hand at the scattered pieces. They jumped up and scurried to their former positions.

"I know it. And for no reason other than Ariane loved him." He buried his shaggy blonde head in his hands.

"You ought to be glad Ariane never loved any of us," Rowena said wryly, reaching across the table to pat him on the arm. "Think what would have become of the school."

"That isn't funny."

"No, not especially." Rowena glanced at Percy, who jumped. He'd forgotten that she knew he was there, and had simply been watching the scene unfold as though it were a play. "Something truly funny happened to me today, though. Just before you walked in."

Percy shook his head wildly. The fewer people who knew about him, the better. Rowena smirked at him.

Godric glanced at Rowena, then over at the spot where Percy was hidden. "Funny ha-ha, or funny peculiar?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'll let you decide for yourself." Her overlarge eyes blinked, and Percy knew that he was horribly visible.

Gryffindor scanned the room quickly, as though checking for oddities, then came back to Rowena. "Just tell me, woman," he growled. She rolled her eyes over in Percy's direction.

Godric looked at him and jumped a foot. "Him!" he roared, springing to his feet and sending chessboard flying. "How dare you condemn Salazar for the evils of necromancy when you practice it here?" He turned on Rowena and grabbed the front of her dress, pulling her face up to his. "How dare you, woman?"

Rowena's feet weren't touching the ground. She made an incomprehensible noise and grinned, her face turning beet red.

"You filthy hypocrite," he snarled, "You would undermine my best friend…and to what end? To gain more students? To gain more respect from Helga and I, thinking that we didn't know you had dipped deep into the Dark Arts to save a student you were half in love with?" He shook her like a terrier shaking a rat. "Tell me why, and then—only then—will I consider letting you stay at Hogwarts." Rowena made a strained noise, face purpling.

"Stop!" Percy cried. "She didn't do it! I was never dead—let her down before she chokes to death!"

Godric stared at him. "You aren't Laramy Ferrer?" he asked slowly.

"Of course not," Percy snapped, "He's dead. Let her go!"

A confused look crossed his face, then Godric's huge hands loosened their grip, and Rowena dropped to the floor, wheezing.

"Are you all right?" Percy asked her, as her face first pinked, then paled back to its normal shade.

She nodded, and to his surprise, started laughing. "You think that's the first time he's lost his temper with me? Doesn't know his own strength, our Godric." Rowena massaged her throat and looked up at her fellow Founder. "You made the same mistake I did, in thinking that he is Laramy. He isn't, but he is from a future where Ariane exists once more."

"What?" Godric gasped, taking a few steps back. "Have you told this to Helga?" He had broken into a very slight sweat, visible on his swarthy face.

"Of course not, he only just dropped in," Rowena retorted. "Without invitation, I might point out." She winked at Percy as she adjusted the quill pen in her hair.

There was a shout of, "Hallo?" from downstairs.

"That would be Helga, wondering where we've gotten to," Godric muttered. "Sending her oldest daughter to check up on us, probably." His ruddy face went ruddier.

"Come on up, Emma," Rowena called down the stairs. "Godric and I were just having a bit of a chat." She blinked at Percy, who felt himself go invisible at once.

"Do you want to be involved in this?" she asked the large man, reaching up to touch his shoulder. "I'll understand if you don't want to."

"Rowena, you know that I respect you as a witch, and as a friend, but I'll have no harebrained schemes from you. I want to keep my mind on this school and my students." He bent and kissed her forehead. "Do what you must, but keep Hogwarts out of it."

A very pretty teenage girl appeared on the landing. Emma was tall, as tall as Percy, with long amber hair that she wore braided with ivory ribbons. Her dress was green and practical, but didn't hide a pleasantly curvy figure. Wide blue eyes flicked from Founder to Founder before settling on Godric. Emma's face lit with a dimpled smile.

Percy couldn't help smiling himself. Emma clearly adored Godric, and the fond smile Gryffindor gave her showed that it was at least partially mutual.

"My mother was hoping that you two could solve a problem she's having in the kitchens. It seems that somebody's doused the hearth and nothing will light it." Godric frowned, Rowena's eyes widened.

"Godric, would you go?" Rowena requested, her hands going once more to her feather. "I should—check up on Salazar."

"He's nowhere to be found, milady," Emma replied, her eyes downcast. "Mum's been looking for him for ages."

"I'll find him."

"Yes milady." Emma and Godric started down the stairs. Percy started to get up, but Rowena gestured that he should stay where he was. She then directed her wand at the back of Godric's head and murmured "_Obliviate._"

"What are you doing?" Percy hissed at her.

"He didn't want to be involved," Rowena shrugged, moving away from him and loosening her hair. "I don't want anyone to know about this who doesn't have to. You did say that you've spoken to Ariane?"

"Yes."

"How did that come to pass?" With a final tug of pins, Rowena's hair fell to her knees in a chestnut sheet. "When did you meet her?" Her brown eyes bored into his, she smiled slightly.

Percy sighed. "It might take awhile," he hedged.

"Time is of the element. Begin now, and perhaps all our time together won't be in vain." She gestured to the chair Godric had vacated. "Have a seat, Percy, and tell me everything." He took the seat warily. Rowena was behaving differently—he thought. Perhaps this was how she normally was and Percy'd never had the chance to see it. She twirled the feather between her fingers. "How did you know that it was Ariane, when you first saw her?"

"I—I knew that she was someone I cared about," Percy stammered. "I don't know why—"

"And how," Rowena continued, a steely glint in her eye, "on earth would you know you loved her, if you'd only just met her?" Percy made to stand up but was halted by a firm gesture that pinned him to his seat like ropes. "Why do you love her? Why?" Her voice was growing shriller.

"What's wrong?" he asked, trying to sound soothing, but it only seemed to make her angrier.

She stomped her foot, hair flying, and shrieked, "Why do you love her? Why didn't you love me?"

Time was indefinable, a whirl of black stickiness and colors that were alternately pulpy and starch-stiff. Ariane wasn't sure if she was rolling, flying, or standing still, nor did she know who was with her. After a few seconds of the swirls of shifting lights, colors, and odors, she closed her eyes, certain she was going to be sick.

She landed with a thump about six feet away from a wall, finding herself on top of Hermione and underneath Lupin and Harry. "Ouch," she said, but her mind was already reeling from the sight and didn't notice the pain. Ariane scrambled away so that she could get a better look.

"Something went wrong with the spell," Lupin murmured as he picked himself up. "We went too far back."

"How much too far?" Harry asked, a worried crease in his forehead.

"Just a day or so. Was there unaccounted weight? Angharad, how many knives _are_ you wearing?"

"Not enough to change anything. You'd need a weight difference of at least a hundred pounds to throw us off more than a few minutes." Angharad frowned at them all. "Well, that's only a little less than twenty pounds per person. Are you lot wearing steel underclothes or something?"

Ariane tuned her out, instead looking around at the part of Hogwarts she could see.

The walls were bigger than when she'd seen them last, with battlements on top that looked more castle-like than the mere walls they had been before. Off to her right was a smaller stone building with tall, narrow windows and a slate roof, emitting the unmistakable odor of a stable. Before it had been a wooden barn, with a thatched roof. The forest seemed father back from the walls, but that was because parts of it had been cleared for the wood.

"It's Hogwarts," Ariane breathed, "Hogwarts as I knew it. Well, not quite," she amended, "but its just so much more familiar!"

"Something reeks," Angharad observed, covering her sensitive nose with her thumbless hand. "What lives in that stable?"

"Winged horses, dogs—Godric's animals," Ariane supplied.

"I though I could smell horses," Hermione said hopefully. "Can we see them?" She glanced at Lupin, who looked doubtful. "We won't be seen."

"Well, they'll never recognize Ariane," Angharad pointed out, flicking her hair out of her eye. "And we have at least five hours until sunset."

Eagerly the three teenagers advanced on the stables, but slowed down as a ferocious deep growl came from inside. Ariane smiled, her green eyes bright in her magically darkened face. "That's Bear," she murmured. "I'd recognize him anywhere." She climbed in through one of the narrow windows, hitching up her green dress.

"Did she say there's a bear?" Harry asked, peering in the window after her.

Ariane stuck her head out. "Come in, there's nobody in here. They're probably all at lessons." Harry and Hermione followed her in.

Only Angharad noticed the four sets of dusty footprints going into the stables, but she only registered it as an explanation for their extra travel. She wasn't concerned about a possible hitchhiker, only glad that she knew she hadn't made an error. Quietly, as Lupin turned towards the stables, she took off her Time-Turner, set it on the ground, and crushed it beneath the toe of her boot, grinding the glass and sand together, and went the opposite way into the woods.

_Author's Note: On that enigmatic note, I shall leave you—for the time being. Not all is how it should be at Hogwarts—and that's how writers like it._

_Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year._


End file.
